Begin at the beginning

In May this year I was cruising along nicely. 33, I'd migrated into my second or third career and was working as a web developer at a small firm in Sussex, not a million miles from Brighton. I was pulling down good money and getting myself established as a coder; I was even engaged to be married in August that year. And then...

I started getting what I thought was quite bad eyestrain that was starting to affect my vision. I found it difficult to read text on a screen and next to impossible to read text from a page. This persisted and indeed worsened a bit over the next week or two. Finally I had to concede that something was wrong and went to my optician. They thought I had a lesion on the back of my eye and sent me to the Eye Hospital in Brighton. I rocked up there and endured more tests which confirmed that 40% of my field of vision was gone. I panicked for a moment and wondered if I could retrain as a visually impaired plumber. None of the doctors in the room had any idea what was going on and then a very smart lady called Miss Vickers walked in and said I should go for an MRI scan. Fair enough, I thought, this will take a few weeks. Sure enough, I was told to go home and wait for a letter. I started to get a lift out of Brighton with my dad and was on the road when I got a phonecall to go in to the hospital *immediately* for a brain scan. In retrospect, I realised that they probably needed to rule out some kind of brain tumour or critical, urgent condition. Anyway, up I rocked, scanned I got.

Two weeks later I had to go back and see Miss Vickers for the results. That it took 2 weeks told me that whatever it was, it wasn't brain cancer. She showed me the scans and explained that I had what appeared to be lesions in my brain, caused by AIDS or Syphillis, Multiple Sclerosis or a related condition and would need to see a neurologist. Now, my fiance (now wife) gives blood so that ruled out AIDS and syphillis, in my mind, although tests were needed for the sake of form. I took copies of the scans on my USB keyfob ram thingy as I'm a bit of a sick puppy.

After some faffing about and ultimately digging into my pocket to go private, I saw a neurologist, taking my keyfob with me. He had a look at the scans and tested so neurological responses and concluded that it was 99% likely to be MS and that it was probably this which explained why I drag my left foot, something I had previously attributed to post-operative arthritis in my left knee. I would need a final conclusive test, a lumbar puncture, to confirm the diagnosis and start the ball rolling to get beta interferon, a drug which is important because it reduces the numbers of attacks a person has with MS and also seems to slow or halt the progression of the disease. Its expensive and the NHS PCTs have to agree to fund it but, in reality, never say no....