hi again emstomot and paranoid. dds are in bed now. I can give you a positive story too. Every story is different, of course, though. I was diagnosed when pg with dd1. My symptoms had been some history of bouts of pins and needles/loss of feeling. then optic neuritis, followed very quickly by trigeminal neuralgia. I had an MRI and evoked potentials (i think that's what they were called) and was diagnosed 5 days before Christmas 1999. On my mum's birthday. not great. I pretty much fully recovered from that particular relapse and have only had 2 or 3 since - more problems with my eyes and an episode of bad pain in my leg (also at Christmas). I can't cope with heat at all and I have permanently lost some sensation in my feet. Other than that I am very fit and healthy. I am currently running 15 odd miles a week and am doing an 8 mile race in October. I have dds 4 and 6 to keep me busy, I work 3 days a week, but for the last year have been on sabbatical doing a f-t masters degree. Life is very good. It's a cliche but I do see life as a hand I've been dealt. I have some really good cards - my dds, my dh, my family, a good education and good job and financial security and I have some not so good ones - ms. But if anyone ever offered me the chance to change my hand there is no way on this earth I would take it. If my life comes with ms, so be it. I still don't want another one, thank you very much.
To be perfectly honest, for me, what you are going through now, is by far the hardest bit. I felt a bit like I needed an instruction manual on how to react, emotionally. That sounds very detatched but I really didn;t know how to feel, how I "ought" to feel. I didn't know whether to scream and shout, I didn;t know how to be with my dh and my friends, whether to talk about it or get on with things. I didn;t know how other people wanted me to be. It was a horrible horrible period in my life. Except that dd was there. EmsTomot - the thought of being a mum with ms seems to worry you, and I do understand. But children are incredible little things. You know that you have to sort out your life properly - you have to be sorted. This doesn't mean you can't allow yourself to be ill, or that you have to somehow pretend you're not - it's harder than that - you have to face it square on. I sometimes get a little tired of the admiration people with certain illnesses get for being "amazing" because they do x, y, z. IMHO one of the hardest things is not doing x, y,z. When you know that medical advice is to take it easy, and taking it easy isn't in your nature, then learning, every now and then, that you do have to take it easy - not for your sake, but for your family's is a very difficult lesson. But the point I'm trying to make is that you do, because of your family. I would far rather have ms and children, than ms and none. They give you structure and focus. they help you find your own way through what's happening to you. And I don't think at all that they suffer for it. they are loved.
I think I've rambled a bit, but I hope it's helpful to know you're not alone.