Let me start by saying, "I hate MS!" I do not mean that I possess a passing dislike for the disease, and all of the damage and pain that it causes, but rather a deep seated, visceral hatred of the disease. I say this for a number of reasons some of which I intend to explore or share with those of you masochistic enough to follow my blogging on the topic.
It all started with a routine visit to the doctor, by my wife, at the end of our first year out west. We had just relocated from Wolfville, Nova Scotia to Keg River, Alberta, in the summer of 2000, where I was beginning my career as a secondary school humanities teacher at Dr. Mary Jackson School. Kim, the love of my life and the one living with this insidious disease on a daily basis, went to see her doctor in Manning. During the course of our first year in Alberta we had settled on a family doctor at the Manning Hospital. In the midst of that very busy, financially strained, first year in the North Kim repeatedly found herself in our doctor's office; a two hour round trip from our new home located on the school grounds in Keg River.
Kim was experiencing a re-occurrence of headaches that had plagued her prior to the birth of our second child, Kathleen. During her visit to our doctor, Dr. Lohlun [sp], a new arrival in Manning, Kim recounted her experience with her headaches. Unlike other doctors that Kim had visited, because he was young and new to the area, or because he was extremely insightful I will never know, he proceeded to give real attention to what she was saying. He asked about other issues she might have been having. Kim explained to him that she had experienced, in addition to crippling headaches, occasional blurred vision, poor coordination - thinking she had a hold on an item only to have it hit the floor seconds later - something that had always been attributed by her, family members and others to a naturally occurring clumsiness; that was often the object of self-effacing humor on Kim's part.
After hearing her out, Dr, Lohlun asked her if she would be willing to undergo some other, more extensive testing. Kim agreed and in April or May of 2001 I drove Kim to Grande Prairie Hospital for her CAT Scan; in September of the same year Kim drove herself to Grande Prairie again for her first MRI. It was a few weeks afterwards that Lohlun contacted Kim for a follow up visit. It was at this time that he confirmed his earlier suspicions and that was that she did indeed fit the medical profile of someone suffering from Multiple Sclerosis; however, this he indicated needed to be confirmed by a neurologist.
This resulted in more visits to specialists for further testing and interpreting. This occupied much of our time and resources for the coming year at the end of which Dr. Norbert Witt was able to definitively state that Kim did indeed have MS. At the time I do not think that either of us fully understood or appreciated the implications that were associated with this pronouncement of sentence. One that ten years later continues to impact our daily lives, the lives of our children and those around us.
The writings on this blog will chronicle and examine the disease from what can only be deemed as a very personal perspective. Errors in events, times, dates, and the like are mine alone; as too are the feelings expressed herein.
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