Just another day in my "take for granted life" when......

Hi! My name is Jaime. I was your typical cookie cutter wife,mom. I raised my kids, I worked, I took care of stuff that needed to be done at home, like laundry, dishes, cleaning, cooking, etc., I taught wed. night youth group (dance, miming, dramas), I went to every event at school for the kids, I considered myself a superwomen. I could do it all!

Then one weekend in NY watching my sister run the marathon changed my life forever.......

I noticed that my right arm was not moving as fast as my left. (Texting, eating, opening doors) within the next 2 days I noticed little things that just weren't "normal" were happening. I came back home to NJ on a Monday. Then when I wasn't able to tie my shoe because the right arm was noticeably weaker I went to the hospital. Where they treated me as having a stroke. That was Nov. 8th 2011. I was 35 years old not over weight and wasn't a smoker......stroke? After 7 months I requested a spinal tap, of which he went a little to far and caused a spinal fluid leak and a major headache for days until they went back in a patched it. After, they said, I probably have MS because lupus and all was ruled out in the spinal tap. They put me on Copaxone, which he (the doctor) gave me four samples of four different medications and said take them home and pick which one you want to try!!! WELCOME TO MS, NO ONE KNOWS WHAT THEIR DEALING WITH AROUND HERE! This then led me to the MS Research Center to see Dr. Armistead Williams. I wanted to know what the heck was going on with my body. Did I have MS? What is the best way to treat it? And as you know the list of questions is never ending with something like this. I then suffered from a severe case of trigeminal neuralgia for 13 months. The WORST and longest 13 months of my life. During which, they tried 13 different drugs to help these horrible pains. The average tn pain last up to 5 min. 1-2 x's per week or so. Obviously depending on the case. Mine were 50 minutes long, yes I meant to write the 0 after the 5, and they came average about 4 x's a DAY!!!!! They were so long and horribly painful that it would be to much for my body to handle so I would fall asleep after each pain only to wake up to another one. I cant even put into words what those 13 months were like. On May 2014, I went in for the gamma knife to try to stop this tn once and for all. 6 months to the day after the procedure the pain completely stopped. Over the last year I have started to get my life back. It's been 5 years since I've driven but I started back about 3 weeks ago. My husband and I have a livestock farm which has helped me tremendously from balance issues, strength, right side weakness (still there but nothing like it was), confidence (which seems to get lost in times like these), and my relationship with my husband. I could be a mom again instead of being curled up in a fetal position in pain. As on all marriages MS puts a strain but also makes them stronger. Today I am wearing heels (which I absolutely never thought I would do again). They may not be 4" stilettos but their heels. Of course there was physical therapies and many other procedures to try to stop the pain along with help the major balance issues I was having and all but I could write for days if I told you all "the lovely" details of everything that has happened in the last five years but I will spare you all that and just say that MS has pushed its way into my life but IT WILL NOT RUN IT!!! #overcomer #fightlikeagirl