My ex husband has MS, he had been having problems with one of his legs giving way, the doctors said he had a trapped nerve in his back. He started with sore eyes & slightly blurred vision when I was pregnant with our DS almost 15 years ago, we put it down to him being tired with working shifts & trying to get our home finished before our DS was due to be born, I went to work as normal one Monday morning leaving him at home to go on afternoon shift, he was going to collect some baby stuff we had ordered from Meadowhall on his way to work, as he was parking up his vision started going, he managed to collect the order before his vision went totally & he had to ask for help to get someone to collect him & the car. He was taken to hospital who at the time thought it could be some type of stress related migraine & sent home, our GP referred him to the rapid stroke assessment unit who ruled out a stroke & we spent a month going backwards & forwards to different clinics to try & get a diagnosis before we paid to see a neurologist privately who ordered an MRI scan for the next day which was Christmas Eve, he had the scan first thing in the morning & by lunchtime we got a call from the consultant to give him a diagnosis of MS & a prescription for oral steroids to get him through Christmas, we got an appointment to the MS clinic for the New year. His vision didn't come back through Christmas & as our DS was due only a month later we were really panicking that he wouldn't be able to see when he was born. At the MS clinic he was put on intravenous steroids for three days, on the evening of the second day, his vision came back as quickly as it had gone. He still had problems with walking & coordination, he had intensive physio, his speech became a problem as he knew what he wanted to say but the connection from his brain to his mouth wasn't working, we had a couple of weeks where he had tantrums like an angry two year old, he tried to put something away in a cupboard, could see that there wasn't space to put it but his brain kept on telling him to put it there, I found him throwing all the stuff out of the cupboard & collapsing on the floor crying in frustration. He was put on Beta interferon about four months after he was diagnosed, that really helped & after a year of having repeated relapses his MS settled to a pattern of only having a relapse every 14 months which was quickly sorted with steroids, we went on a course for newly diagnosed patients to meet people who had been diagnosed for some time, they gave us hope that it wasn't all bad news, we would have a life again.
He has never worked since he was diagnosed as he had a job working in heavy steel industry where a mistake or slip in coordination could kill someone, he became a house husband & cared for our son, we bought a caravan & spent most of our first year as parents there, going fishing & for walks, we learned to take our time & for him to rest when he needed to.
It wasn't his MS that ended our marriage, we just had grown apart & wanted different things, it's 15 years now since his diagnosis, he has had some bad relapses that have meant time in hospital, he's had to have plasma exchanges & was put on a trial for Alemtuzamab, unfortunately he wasn't a success case, he is now in a wheelchair & lives in an adapted bungalow but he has a dog & gets out every day with him, he drives an adapted car & our DS shares his time between us.