Buxhoeveden, S. (2015, April 3). Thriving in the face of adversity. TEDTalk.
Stephanie was 25 years old, a neurosurgical intensive care nurse and enrolled in a program to become a nurse anesthetist (the person that injects you with anesthesia). One day while she was working out she noticed her foot go numb and it progressed up her leg as time went on. Being a driven person focused on her end goal and not current problems she ignored this and carried on with her day to day life (I probably would have done the same thing honestly.) As time went on she finally got her moment in school. She was going to get to be in an operating room and was going to administer anesthesia. (Woot-Woot! Big day!) That morning she was getting dressed and still couldn't feel her legs, she got to work and before things got too busy at the hospital she noticed that one of her arms went numb and her vision started to go away. So she finally called her instructor and told her what was going on with her body. Her instructor told Stephanie to go to the ER which was very close to her. She got admitted and stayed for a week... She was then diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). Lucky for her though it's relapsing remitting MS and not progressive. She takes medicine and has adaptive equipment to help her with pain management and daily struggles. One day while she was in the hospital her nurse mentioned not liking neurology, which Stephanie loves neurology. So Stephanie chatted with her for a while and showed the nurse some cool stuff. The next day the nurse came back with a new fire within her about neurology. Seeing that change in a person lit a fire within her. Stephanie changed careers and became a nurse practitioner working with other MS patients. After some time went by she noticed that a lot of her patients had the same questions about what to do after being diagnosed. So she started a website about answering the questions and sharing her story as a fighter as a way to help educate those who do not have access to specialists or those that could be in the dark about their own personal care.... Wow what a woman!
My uncle passed away when I was (I believe) in 8th grade (maybe 7th grade). My family seemed to have 3 back to back to back deaths around that time. They were all unfortunately kind of expected, one simply from old age, one from Alzheimers, and one from MS. My uncle had been diagnosed with MS years before (again I was young during this time and I don't remember the timeline very well). I do remember clearly my family speaking so incredibly highly of my uncle I can't even describe the amazing things they would say about this man. He was an incredibly hard worker and didn't ask for anything in return- life is cruel sometimes. At the time (I was like 13 so forgive me for not cherishing moments more) I didn't really paid close attention to the words people said, but they never left my brain. He always seems to come to mind when I think life is getting hard for me or if there is a task that needs to be done. He just pops up in my head randomly, I think I have modeled my work ethics after him and my father (two very driven/hardworking men that you could count on). As I got older and became more interested in the medical field MS became a topic that just never seemed to go away no matter how much I wanted to ignore it because I don't want to think about the pain he felt or other struggles he dealt with within his body. And once I learned that it's an autoimmune disease that attacks the sheath around your nerves disabling communication within your body, and your body slowly just kind of quits on you. My heart broke in half because I cannot imagine the amount of pain my uncle probably experienced for years, and he probably never really complained either. What a man!
I wanted to hear the story from someone else. I wanted to hear someone else's experience. I need to learn that not every story is going to be like my uncle's and that people do indeed have successful lives after this diagnosis.
What I am taking away/ gained from this content is that it is time for me to grow up. I picked this topic simply because I need to start facing MS and other diseases that have affected my family head on and to stop being a child and ignoring them. I honestly did not know that there were two types of MS one being progressive and one being relapsing remitting. I kind of thought that they were all what my uncle experienced. Learning about relapsing remitting MS has given me hope for those out there battling with this disease. I gained more internal "strength" and maybe not as much knowledge after this but both will be carried on with me through my journey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuLOT6GsAxw
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