ME: Before and After MS
Hi There! I'm a divorced single male who, up until I was diagnosed with MS, has always been pretty much in near perfect health. Sure, I'm a little overweight, but I attribute alot of that to the way MS has relegated me to a sedentary lifestyle.
Growing up, I was somewhat athletic. Alot of baseball and swimming in the summers from the time I was age 7 and swimming in highschool. I wasn't great by any stretch of the imagination, but good enough, and respected enough that our Coach named me the first captain of the team. In all the years before that, the team always had "co-captains" and once, even "tri-captains." I was an uneasy leader but all that led to a partial scholarship for college at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, or IUP where I majored in Respiratory Therapy.
For reasons that I won't bore you with, I found it to offer limited possibilities for the future, but because the curriculum was so specialized, changing my major to Business, (My interest at the time), wasn't a good option because it would require 3 more years just to catch up on all the prerequisite courses I missed. Instead, I plowed ahead and graduated and immediately enrolled in West Virginia University's "2nd Degree in Business" program that I could complete in just one year! Yea!!! I got the degree, focusing my courses on those that would prepare me for a career in Personnel Management, Labor Relations and/or Human Resources. I never looked back. ...
Fast forward: In 1993, after repeating episode of strange numbness, I went to The Cleveland Clinic where I was diagnosed with, what was then referred to as a case of, "Benign MS. In 2002 I became disabled from working so I gave it up, sold my house, bought a RV and set out to spend the rest of my life on the road. ... MS had other ideas though and after about 6 months, while on the other side of the country, in Santa Barbara, CA, I experienced a relapse that left me hesitant to continue. Instead, I returned to my childhood home near Pittsburgh, PA, to be near the support of family an my neurologist. I no longer drive and use a Power Chair to get around my apartment. I spend most of my time keeping in touch with a few of my college friends by daily email exchanges. :-)
** Moderator's note - Post broken into paragraphs for easier reading. Many people with MS have visual difficulties that prevent them from reading large blocks of print. **
Growing up, I was somewhat athletic. Alot of baseball and swimming in the summers from the time I was age 7 and swimming in highschool. I wasn't great by any stretch of the imagination, but good enough, and respected enough that our Coach named me the first captain of the team. In all the years before that, the team always had "co-captains" and once, even "tri-captains." I was an uneasy leader but all that led to a partial scholarship for college at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, or IUP where I majored in Respiratory Therapy.
For reasons that I won't bore you with, I found it to offer limited possibilities for the future, but because the curriculum was so specialized, changing my major to Business, (My interest at the time), wasn't a good option because it would require 3 more years just to catch up on all the prerequisite courses I missed. Instead, I plowed ahead and graduated and immediately enrolled in West Virginia University's "2nd Degree in Business" program that I could complete in just one year! Yea!!! I got the degree, focusing my courses on those that would prepare me for a career in Personnel Management, Labor Relations and/or Human Resources. I never looked back. ...
Fast forward: In 1993, after repeating episode of strange numbness, I went to The Cleveland Clinic where I was diagnosed with, what was then referred to as a case of, "Benign MS. In 2002 I became disabled from working so I gave it up, sold my house, bought a RV and set out to spend the rest of my life on the road. ... MS had other ideas though and after about 6 months, while on the other side of the country, in Santa Barbara, CA, I experienced a relapse that left me hesitant to continue. Instead, I returned to my childhood home near Pittsburgh, PA, to be near the support of family an my neurologist. I no longer drive and use a Power Chair to get around my apartment. I spend most of my time keeping in touch with a few of my college friends by daily email exchanges. :-)
** Moderator's note - Post broken into paragraphs for easier reading. Many people with MS have visual difficulties that prevent them from reading large blocks of print. **
Some of us here say its only benign until its not.
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