Well, I picked up the images from my 3 MRI’s today. Justin and I had only seen the photos of my brain while at the neurologist, which were pretty darn cool! And evidence that I do in fact have a brain! So, I was interested in seeing the images from my two spinal MRI’s and interested in sharing some of those photos with you guys!
So after a visit to my family doctor this morning, for a healthy injection of B12 (which I got a Sesame Street band-aid for), I made my way to the hospital to pick up the images. After parking and slowly walking in (I think you need some better parking arrangements Hamot!) I finally gained control of the CD.
While I was happy to have this wonderful little CD, I was not happy to see they hospital listed me as age 30. As of today, I have exactly 5 months until my 30th birthday! I may have lesions on the brain, but I know my age!
Now, I know I’ve been discussing my symptoms and some treatments for my MS on this blog. But let me get a bit technical on your here and give you a little explanation on what MS is actually doing to my body. There a lot of people out there who don’t actually know. So here it goes. Please take a minute to grab a caffeinated beverage for what may be a little bit of a bore for a minute.
This is a little story about MS I found online, I think that it does a pretty good job explaining what’s going on:
MS does its damage by causing the nerves in localized areas in the brain and spinal cord to lose their protective sheaths, called myelin. At first, when the myelin is being attacked, the body brings a higher blood supply to the attacked area or areas to fight the attack, and they becomes swollen and inflamed. These areas now become “lesions.” (A “lesion” is simply an area of abnormality.) If the areas being attacked are large enough they can be seen on an MRI. At this point, when they are inflamed and blood-engorged, they are called “active lesions” because the inflammation is actively attacking the nerve cells. At first the nerves themselves haven’t changed much and they appear (and have the same density) as the healthy areas around them. The body attempts to repair the damage that is being done and sometimes these areas try to re-myelinate, with varying success. They may disappear from the next MRI. They aren’t perfect in their function, but the areas may return to a normal appearance.
If the nerves do not re-myelinate and the damage continues, for a long time the lesions sit as scars. These scarred areas contain damaged and dying cells, their blood supply shrinks, and they become dense–more dense than the normal brain around them. These are the classic MS “plaques” and are considered old lesions. They show up as the bright areas, also called “hyperintense,” most of us have seen in pictures and on our films. If the attack on the myelin sheath is too strong for the immune system to repair, more and more myelin disappears and the area of nerves eventually dies. Then it completely scars and contracts. The blood flow is decreased to that area and the body tries to reabsorb it. The area then becomes “less dense” than the surrounding normal nerve tissue. After a longer time the scar can reabsorb completely and the area becomes “empty.” It’s called a black hole.
Ok, now that we made it through that craziness. Let’s take a look at exhibit A, My brain!
Now, as you can see in the bottom left side of the photo is a bright white spot. That is a lesion on my brain. Now, we don’t know how old it is, unfortunately it’s not like counting the rings on a tree, but we can see it isn’t an active lesion. So there’s a win for me 🙂 Really smart friend, Allison told me the neurologist had told her I had a large lesion on my brain. I told Allison, “Go big or go home, right?”
Now that we’ve taken a little looksie at what’s going on upstairs, let me give you a little update about what’s going on currently with me.
My legs unfortunately have not shown any improvement with the steroids I was prescribed and the medicine that was supposed to help with the grainy feeling in my legs. Sad Face. So, I will be once again meeting with the neurologist on Thursday to discuss further treatment options.
I’m a bit discouraged by this, as it’s getting harder and harder for me with walking each day. It now takes the help of my hands on the stairs in front of me to go up the stairs. And walking, well, it’s just not pretty. I am lucky that I have not suffered any falls, being as I’m quite accident prone as it is. But on the bright side, I have a job where I sit all day, which prevents accidents and allows me to rest.
That being said, all in all, mentally I’ve been having a rough couple of days. It’s hard to see the good sometimes when the bills are stacking up and you’re not seeing any improvement. But thankfully, I have my husband, my family and my wonderful friends! As well all the positivity that have come out of this blog! So tonight, I’m making myself go to bed and let the negativity out of my system, because tomorrow will be a better day, I’ll make sure of that!
Here are a couple more pictures of my head/brain, spinal cord and a profile view. All I’m saying is an MRI does nothing for my boobs 😉
Multiple Screw-This 