It’s been difficult for me to write this blog, hence why this one has taken a little longer to come compared to the others, which have more or less been churned out. The difficulty being, that my most recent appointment didn’t really go as I expected it to go, with a combination of both good and bad news. This has lead to a lot of questions and some huge decisions for me to make. It’s definitely easier to write these blog posts once the dust has settled a bit!

It’s been a blur of appointments since I first stepped into the Optician’s back in June. Following my last appointment where I was diagnosed, I’ve had a further two. Early March, I met with my MS Nurse, Danny. I like Danny. He definitely knows his stuff!

My first meeting with him wasn’t much more than an initial introduction and confirmation of what I already knew about the condition. He talked me through what I could expect from him, which included three monthly appointments. He also shed some light on my next appointment, in a further 10 days, with an MS Specialist. Last Friday I had that appointment with my specialist.

My appointment was at 9 am at Salford Royal. I was a bit miffed as it’s a bit of a trek (my other appointments had been in Wigan), but the way the dates fell, Dave was working a Saturday so was able to take Friday off to be with me, which was a huge relief. I was really struck at what a lovely, warm hospital Salford is. I get the impression that this is fairly recent, but compared to my experience of hospitals historically, this one felt far more fresh and modern.

I was called in for my appointment by an MS Nurse, Danielle, who sat me down and told me she needed to get me to do a couple of tests prior to meeting with the specialist. I was used to being prodded, poked, liquids taken from me and liquids added to me as well by this point so I wasn’t phased. But it wasn’t those types of test.

You know the show with Philip Schofield, The Cube? It was like that! I had to put all these pegs into holes and take them out again with one hand, and then do it with the other hand, all the while Danielle was sat with a stopwatch in her hand. Oh the pressure! She explained to me that she was just testing how long it took me so that a benchmark was set. That way they could test how long it took me next time, and check for degeneration. She also timed a 25 metre walk, again, to set a benchmark for next time I was in.

Following a ten minute session in The Cube, I was then sent to wait to be called in.

If there’s one thing that sticks in my mind about all the medical professionals I’ve encountered, it’s how kind, friendly and reassuring they are, and this specialist was no exception. I went into the consultation room, and took a seat. He asked me to give him a timeline of my symptoms and everything that had happened (I was getting very well rehearsed in this by now!) and reviewed my scans.

He looked through pictures of both my brain and spine, then asked me to sit up on the bed. He did all the reflex tests just like Dr. Tyne had. He tested my eye sight (then started laughing at me for making the letters up when I couldn’t see them!), and did the tuning fork thing as well. This one was particularly concerning, as he’d whack the thing that looked like a tuning fork, then touched it on my foot asking me to tell him when I couldn’t feel it anymore. Within roughly two seconds I could no longer feel it. This didn’t really bother me until he repeated it on my hands and lower arms and I could still feel it about 10 seconds later. Definitely something wrong with my lower limbs there…

Once all the tests were finished, he sat me down, made notes on what had just happened and then told me that I’ve clearly had this going on for a very long time. He said that my brain wasn’t causing him any concern, but there were so many lesions on my spine that it suggested that my MS was very active. One more relapse, could result in irreversible damage. Equally, that might not be the case. But I may not continue to be as lucky as I have been. He even said that he was surprised that in spite of all the lesions that I had, I was still as mobile as I am.

He then went on to tell me, that in terms of medication, he wanted to hit it hard and aggressively.

This came as a shock. Perhaps even the toughest blow I’ve had so far. I was almost expecting to go into that appointment and be told that it wasn’t bad enough to medicate (you only qualify if you’ve had two relapses in two years and I thought that I might have missed that slightly). Having read all sorts of horror stories on forums (bloody forums!) about them, I thought there was a chance I’d even make the conscious decision to not medicate. But not this.

He presented three options to me. Mavenclad, Tysabri and Lemtrada. All come with their own risks and varying levels of effectiveness. There are pros and cons to all. Mavenclad for example is only about 60% effective in terms of halting progression. Tysabri is about 80% effective but it involves a day in hospital for an infusion every 28 days. Lemtrada is the one that medical professionals seem keen for me to go on. It’s intense, but it’s also the one that although on paper it’s the same level of effectiveness as Tysabri, in practice it’s a touch more.

I was really overwhelmed with all the information. This is something I’ve struggled more and more with – if I can get the same information by reading it somewhere, please just stop talking to me, and give me the written stuff! I asked if there was any written material, leaflets or websites available. Anything with everything I needed to know in a written down format so that I could digest it at my own pace.

As it happened, Danny was at the hospital that day, and not out and about visiting patients. After he took some of my blood (they needed to prove that I’ve had chicken pox and apparently my word isn’t enough!) he grabbed a free room and talked all the options through with me. Dave and I probably could have made a decision there and then that Lemtrada was the option that I wanted to go with, but in spite of the urgency to make a decision, he still wanted me to take a week to reflect before confirming what I wanted to go with.

I’d planned to work from home that afternoon, but honestly, my brain was a mess! I didn’t have a flipping clue what I wanted to do. I was in shock from finding out my MS has caused more spinal damage than anticipated. I was scared, but equally reassured by the treatment options available to me.

My Dad is the absolute voice of reason so although through discussing it with Dave and Danny, my mind was pretty made up on Lemtrada, I needed his opinion. I sent him an email detailing the basics of each. He read through it but ultimately felt that we needed to go with medical opinion.

So Lemtrada it is. I’ll be confirming this choice to Danny on Monday.

Lemtrada works by killing off your white blood cells – your immune system. I’m being switched off and on again! The idea is that the new white blood cells don’t do what my current ones are doing (which is attacking my nerves). You have two rounds of it, 12 months apart. Probably within the next two months, I will be an in patient for five days at Salford whilst I receive my first round of infusion. I’ll get sent home with a sick note from work for about six weeks and all the antibiotics as I won’t be able to fight infection. Then I go back again in another year for round two, which only goes on for three days this time.

The only other snag is that I’ll have to go for monthly blood and urine samples at Wigan Infirmery for five years. This is just to keep on top of the more serious possible side effects such as thyroid problems, clotting issues and kidney failure. I can stomach a needle in me every month though to keep on top of that!

And in amongst all of this, the good news is that I still don’t need a lumbar puncture!