I’m always cold. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always felt cold. Except for when I’ve been boiling hot of course. I’ve struggled to regulate my body temperature for most of my life.

Sometimes when I’m exercising, I completely overheat, particularly on a hot day. My personal training sessions with Sam are only 30 minutes. In my four years training with her, on two occasions I’ve had to stop at 20 minutes because I’m seeing stars and want to throw up. Not like I’ve over-exerted myself. No. This is different.

Now, in the last 18 months or so, the night sweats have started. The worst thing about these is that I feel freezing, and all the while, I’m sweating buckets. I’ve always struggled with regulating my body temperature though. It’s just one of those things. Nothing to read too much in to.

The day I got told that I might have MS (I’ll tell this story properly in another blog), I was asked whether I suffer from mood swings. Well, at the time I answered with a definite “No!” What woman wants to be accused of mood swings?

Upon reflection however, this is definitely something that is a bit of a theme with me. I’m a ranter. I’m also a crier. I cry in both sadness, and with laughter. Sometimes when I cry with laughter I get really confused and start sobbing with sadness. It’s a strange experience for both me, and anyone that witnesses it. I’m pretty sure Dave thought I was a complete fruit loop the first time I did it in front of him.

The trouble is, it’s unlikely we’ll ever define that that is a result of MS. It could just be “Jo”. I’ve accepted that as “Jo” for the first 31 years of my life, so it doesn’t matter what the answer is, but needless to say, I’ll probably always wonder.

The “window-shelfy thing” is another example that sticks in my mind of things that weren’t quite “right” with me. I have always been academic. I was a straight A student, I have an upper second class honour law degree, and I passed my Bar exams with a Very Competent. I’m good with words. I have a great memory. I have awesome recall. Or do I?

I had to send an email to some work colleagues recently which involved talking about the “window sill”. Thanks to Kat I will never forget that word again! Much to their amusement, I called it the “window-shelfy thing” because for love nor money could I recall the word. I know what you’re thinking, because I thought it too:

“I’m 31, there’s no more room left to keep words you don’t use often”

“It’s not that common a word!”

“Other people forget words all the time!”

But I don’t forget words. It’s not something that I do. It’s funny, because of all the random symptoms (not relapses) I explained away pre-diagnosis, this is perhaps the one that distressed me the most. I’m still trying to work out why. Maybe it’s because I’ve always prided myself on being “academic”, and this kind of thing coming so easily.

Like with my emotions, there’s a very real possibility that all of my excuses for this particular “brain block” are absolutely correct. Equally, I can’t ignore the fact that MS can affect cognitive abilities, like recall of words.

The more I write these blogs, the more I see how many things with my body haven’t been right for a very long time. These symptoms haven’t just appeared as a result of my diagnosis. I didn’t not feel them before. I just excused them away, without any medical or scientific justification for years. My excuses and explanations have been taken away from me though.

I’m sure as you have read this, and Part 4 of my story, you’ve wondered what the big fuss is. None of these things are huge (apart from maybe the MS hug and the fatigue is tough) but they’re there. Hanging over me, everyday. You’d be right to wonder what the big deal is. But the big deal is, that all these little symptoms mean that every so often a relapse will happen, and I really will find life tough when that happens.

Equally, all these little symptoms are nothing more than a mild irritant at the moment but they might get worse. They might become more than just irritating. But they might not. I don’t know. The nature of MS is that it’s that unpredictable. I see little point in worrying about that though – it’s out of my control.

If there’s one thing I would love people to take away from my blogs, it’s to not ignore your body when things don’t seem right. There is absolutely no harm in getting it checked out. I don’t want you all to turn into hypochondriacs, but if things don’t seem right, don’t ignore it!

The trouble is, all these little symptoms didn’t seem serious. They all came along over such a long period of time, that I was used to them and just accepted them.

But some things just cannot be explained away.

Like going blind.