First Day
You always think of reasons not to go see the doctor, and the morning of my 40th birthday is no different.
It’s a Sunday, and stripes of sunlight warm the kitchen where I nurse a cup of coffee as the weekly flurry of dress selection, gospel music and competition for access to the bathroom and the comics section swirls through the house. For once, I have beaten everyone to the breakfast table, but there’s a problem: I can’t seem to pick up the mug with my right hand. My arm doesn’t hurt and it’s not stiff — it just won’t respond.
Not being able to lift a coffee mug would hardly concern me, except that my arm isn’t the only unresponsive limb. My right leg has been draggy and awkward since Friday. I’m worried enough that I suddenly don’t care about the cost or inconvenience of a weekend trip to the hospital, nor does my healthy-lifestyle-tough-it-out-don’t-panic attitude seem admirable or even sane.
“Something isn’t right,” I say. “This is not normal.”
When my husband says he’s taking me to the emergency room, I don’t argue.
“Didn’t you worry that you were having a stroke?” the ER physician asks me. I can’t tell if he’s irritated or just doing his job, but somehow the question triggers tears.
I tell him I know about those home stroke tests — where you look yourself in the mirror and smile to see if your mouth is crooked, raise your arms above your head to see if one sags.
“I did those,” I say, “and it seemed like I was fine.”
He tests my arm and leg strength, shuts off the lights to peer into my eyes, and agrees it doesn’t look like a stroke. A CT scan might reveal the source of my sudden right-side weakness.
An hour or so later, he returns with the results.
“You have some spots on your brain,” he says. I can’t tell from his face or his voice if this is bad news, really bad news or disastrous news. “You should have an MRI but we can’t do that today.” He explains how to schedule the appointment Monday, and leaves the room to talk to the nurses. Then he turns in the doorway.
“I saw on your chart you wrote Sept. 14 as your date of birth. Is it your birthday?”
I nod. His face softens.
“Well, Happy Birthday,” he says.
Later, I wonder what his expression was. I’m almost afraid to guess.
Into the Dark
Fear doesn’t really hit me until the next day, when the radiology technician straps me into an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machine at the hospital.
I should be happy the department has been able to squeeze me in on such short notice. When I wake Monday morning, my right arm is even more rubbery and useless than when I went to sleep: I can’t type on my computer keyboard or hold a pen to write. I call the hospital at 9 a.m. and ask for an early test.
So here I am at the hospital, tiptoeing around the frightened “what if?” feeling as I slide into the spaceship-looking MRI machine. I dismiss it as borderline claustrophobia. I don’t like small spaces, and can’t imagine anyone enjoys being strapped onto a stiff board with a hard plate at the crown of one’s head and plastic mask of bars across the face.
“Try not to move your head,” the technician says, after she warns me I will hear various clicking and bonging sounds.
I try to obey, but it’s awfully hard to cry without moving your noggin. And now that I’m immobilized for at least an hour in a dark little space, the thoughts flurry through my mind: my youngest child, 9, is a long way from being fully educated or of marriageable age; what if I have brain tumors and only a few months to live? I never got around to assembling a homemade quilt for her as I did my older two children. I want to see all my children graduate from college, get married, have their own sons and daughters. I don’t want to die and miss out on all the wonderful things ahead.
I’m not supposed to cry, so I abandon this line of thought and spend the remainder of the hour reciting Bible verses, hymns and poetry from memory.
When I emerge, my fear has retreated to a tiny corner of my mind, pushed out of place by a vast amount of rhyming words, King James English and common relief that I am once again able to breathe, stretch and move my head.
We visit my family doctor, who has early test results in hand.
“I think you have a myelin-deteriorating condition, like multiple sclerosis,” he says. And he smiles with what I would bet is relief. Then he modifies his expression into something more regretful.
“MS isn’t something anyone wants, but the good news is that it’s treatable. This is something you can live with.”
He outlines an initial course of treatment and we head back to the hospital for more tests. The nurses in the emergency room greet me with a mixture of sadness and glee. They are sorry to hear the diagnosis is probably MS; they are thrilled I am not rapidly approaching death.
I feel like a little kid who missed her nap, weepy and ready to go home. But there are blood samples to give and a lumbar puncture (formerly known as a spinal tap), which requires a needle so long I just turn my head and pretend I am no longer attached to my body.
“This is a rotten deal,” I try to joke. “The last time someone did this to me, it was for an epidural, and I got a new baby for my cooperation.”
Finally, I am hooked up to an invtravenous machine to get a strong dose of steroids, meant to help the inflammation in my brain subside. All I have to do now is lie still and wait.
Around me, the noise of the emergency room intensifies as more patients come in on an ambulance and through the hospital entrance. Someone complains of heart pains; another person has uncontrollable bleeding; a mother carries in her solemn little girl, who is unable to walk. Lying on the narrow bed with the warm blanket tucked around me, I feel safe, still and beyond all anxiety.
Everyone has been so nice, I tell my husband as he wheels me from the ER. “They kept apologizing for having to poke me with needles and move me around. And they kept bringing me cups of ice and warm blankets. That was so nice.”
“They were pretty busy in there,” he agrees.
I think of the other patients, some of whom seem to be facing greater crises than I am. I think of the mother’s face as she explained her daughter’s problem to the nurse, and the way the thin girl clutched her mother’s neck.
I think of my own children, waiting at home.
For my 40th birthday, multiple sclerosis was not something I expected to receive. But it could be much, much worse. I am grateful.
