Once in a while I feel obligated to post something about MS on my blog. As I mentioned, in the past I tended to just try to ignore it because when I think about what I've lost it is somewhat depressing. I have a lot of things that are good to think about so I try to think about those. This morning my wife was getting me dressed she rolled me over onto my stomach so she could pull my shirt down in the back. Then she rolled me back and I lay there looking at the ceiling fan for what seems like the thousandth time. I laid there while she got my chair in position so she could lift me into it.
As I laid there I thought of how I feel like I'm a baby who crawled into a 200 pound body and has to have everything done for me. It made me think of "how did I get this bad". Until I was diagnosed in 2009 I never even heard of this type of MS. It also has advanced from me being able to walk with a limp in 2009, to being more or less a complete quadriplegic now. When I was in my 40's I always felt like I was pretty healthy. In 1999 I graduated with the help of my employer from a two-year program at our community college. This was part of the agreement for me being promoted to "application engineer". At that time I weighed over 250 pounds and after no more school I had time to go to the gym. I started to lose weight and eat a low-fat diet. Each year I would be more and more healthy. It was about that time I started noticing problems with my walking and just assumed it was from working out too much. So I tried more exercise focusing on the weak side and eating better and better. More vegetables and fruits. As my weight dropped and I became more and more health focused my MS was progressing. Seems like the healthier I tried to be, the worse I got.
One thing I found about losing weight is that there are stages on the cellular level. You could lose weight by shrinking the fat cells fairly quickly. One problem with that is that as long as that fat cells are there it goes back up fairly easily. I found it took months of being at a weight before it became "stable". So there were steps in my weight loss like say I lost 10 pounds. One weekend of overeating and boom it would be back. I found I needed to stay at that weight for number of months for my body to eliminate those fat cells and the weight loss became part of me. So it took quite a few years to go from 250 down to about 170. I was running regularly, biking quite often and kayaking a lot. Strangely though during this time my MS got worse and worse.
I had a theory I shared with my neurologist. My theory was that my body stored toxins in the fat cells and as I kept weight off my body would eventually eliminate those cells freeing up the pesticides to find a new home in my body. I told him I thought this was what was causing my MS symptoms and perhaps I made my MS worse or caused it. He told me it wasn't true but then they can't tell you what causes it so I'm not sure how he can say for certain that I'm not right. The end result was that as I kept getting "healthier" I kept getting weaker and more pathetic. I still wonder if had I stayed fat it would've been better off but of course is no way of knowing.
At this point it doesn't really matter what caused it or accelerated it. I'm in a wheelchair and have accepted this except for losing my right hand. I hope they figure out what causes it so that my children do not have to go through this. They say it's not genetic and I hope that is true. The doctor can't tell me why my MS has advanced so far and so fast. I've tried supplements and other types of eating things and while I was using them I got worse faster than the other guys I know who had my type. They are still able to walk while I kept going down hill so fast. Right now I feel fortunate that I can still be here by myself and we adjusted the controls on my chair so that I'm not able to accidentally drive around. Take care dear reader. It's always good to count your blessings. No matter how bad I am I still have many things to be appreciative of.
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