Solovyeva Olesya Alekseyevna
Living with a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis
Singapore
Despite the fact that the sensation in my legs resembled numbness, yet I was able to walk, but with some difficulty.
At the appointment at the doctor’s, after a series of tests, we were asked a clear question:
«What exactly are you concerned about, and what is the result you want to achieve?»
Our emotional response followed immediately:
«We will be happy if the reasons of the processes going on in my body are defined and the symptoms are relieved, at least by one third».
After having blood tests taken, I went to the radiology building for an MRI examination. It seemed to me that the time slowed down. The diagnostics lasted for a long time, for about two hours. I was very tired, yet throughout the survey, I was lying absolutely motionless.
After I was placed to a ward which I had been offered, the doctor called and told me he came for a visit. He was holding the pictures he had just received and calmly explained.
«Myelitis», we heard from the doctor.
In the pictures, in the segment of thoracic vertebra, in the centre, I saw a small oblong spot.
In the pictures of brain lesions nidi were not found.
My beloved man and I did not understand a thing in medical terms, but the fact that the cause was established suited us as well as reassured a little.
I really wanted to understand how exactly the doctor managed to specify precisely which segment of the spine, the spinal cord, could have a nidus. Communicating with the doctor with the help of an interpreter I asked the doctor to explain more accurately due to the results of which tests he had come to that conclusion.
He kindly explained that in addition to the volume of knowledge in medicine, to clarify the whole situation, it is necessary to additionally apply knowledge of such important sciences as logic and philosophy. On the same day the doctor prescribed me treatment with glucocorticosteroids.
It was already on the fifth day, that my doctor, when testing, noticed that during the Romberg test I had not fallen, and every day vacillation with outstretched arms was getting weaker.
After our request to allow a stroll through the city, we were allowed to go. Having signed the obligation to return to the hospital, we were wished good luck.
After a short walk through the city, on the way back to the hospital, we got under a tropical shower, and had to jog a little. My beloved man was glad to see me running easily only on the sixth day from the beginning of treatment.
My doctor also made one more, additional examination — the measurement of visual evoked potentials. No deviations from the norm were found. Finally, he recommended me to take pills called ‘methylcobalamin’ during two months.
After the discharge, at the final meeting with the doctor, we received a summary of the information about the autoimmune processes, namely, about the attack of one’s own immune cells over one’s own cells and he assured us that the numbness in my legs would go away completely, exactly after one month of treatment. I felt much better; we were pleased with the results of treatment in Singapore.
When at the airport, I went off into a real hysterics. Sasha suggested that I would stay with the bags and went, having taken our passports, to get the boarding passes in the sector on the floor above. After a couple of minutes looking at the bags and having forgotten everything, I thought I had lost the package with our passports.
A strong panic did not give me a chance to come to my senses. I was sweating heavily, began to dash around; my brain seemed to start boiling.
«The lost passport will be found and given to us in the nearest future», this idea occurred to me at the moment Sasha was coming down the escalator. Looking at me he wondered why a motiveless panic had suddenly happened. Then I first got acquainted with the new ability to make a mountain out of a molehill.
Later, in the end of each day, I felt fear: I was disturbed by every rustle and this fear bothered me for a very long time.
