“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

I’ll never forget the first time I saw those letters on a medical report summary of mine; just two letters that jumped off the page – MS; the two letters that changed my life. I had experienced those letters before and they weren’t as earth shattering. At one time I was Ms. Kip Leland and I do hold two MS degrees so the letters themselves aren’t all that scary, however when the letters mean Multiple Sclerosis that’s a whole other story.

What was MS? What would it mean for me? I was too young to be ill; I was at the top of my game. I had just been awarded my doctorate degree, I was the administrator in charge of the newly launched online learning program within the Los Angeles Unified School District which I created from the ground up and I was the advocate for online learning within the State of California. I didn’t have time for this MS thing! When I finally calmed down I realized that I really didn’t know much about the disease or what having MS meant. At first I turned to the doctors and what they told me was not reassuring, so I decided to do what I do best – research.

Basically Multiple Sclerosis is a neurological disease which affects the immune system. In simple terms, the body’s immune system attacks the covering of the nerve cells in the brain (the myelin sheath) causing scarring. Multiple Sclerosis in Latin means “many scars”. With each scarring incident another portion of the brain no longer works. In other words while you are busy living life the disease is silently eating your brain. MS can strike anyone at any time for no apparent reason; there is no cause or predisposition, no hereditary link and no cure. MS affects each individual differently, but one thing is the same, patients have it long before it is diagnosed.

At least the diagnosis explained some of the things that were happening to me (and had been on and off for a long time). The wonderful thing about the brain is that if a part of it is damaged it can sometimes reroute the nerve impulses so that some (if not all) functionality is restored. That is why some of the symptoms of MS come and go (the medical folks call it relapsing/remitting) and it is also why MS usually goes undiagnosed until the patient presents serious symptoms. Unfortunately, sometimes the progression of the disease becomes more advanced and the brain is so seriously scarred that there is no more room for rerouting the nerve transmitters. When that occurs, the patient loses mobility and eventually the body begins to shut down.

In my case I ignored or explained away my symptoms like tripping (I was just not paying attention to where I was going), the loss of words (thinking faster than I could speak), confusion (too much on my plate), extreme fatigue (not getting enough rest or vitamins), mixing up my words (again too much on my plate, thinking faster than I could speak). Extreme sensitivity to heat (well I was a woman who was getting older), muscle spasms (not enough potassium – eat more bananas), weakness in my extremities (I really do need to get to the gym and work out but there was that fatigue thing again) and there were others. I couldn’t really have MS, could I?

Accepting my disease put me at a crossroads; I had two choices – I could give up and take the myriad of drugs that were offered for pain, spasms, fatigue, difficulty sleeping, the interferon drugs that could “possibly” slow down the progression of the disease, the infusion of steroids (treatments that require a shunt and five days in the hospital followed by oral steroids for several weeks to wean off the steroid drugs) and use a cane for balance (we will refer to these options as the lemons). Or I could embrace my condition (notice I did not use the word fight), find out what I could do holistically to slow down the progression, change my diet (yes there is actually an MS diet), lessen my stress, surrender to the fact that I had MS and make the disease my companion (not my adversary). In other words I had to figure out what I could do to keep my dignity, alleviate my fear of “being seen as disabled” and move on with my life (we will refer to these options as lemonade). I chose lemonade. Now I don’t want anyone to think that I was denying the eventuality of having to one day needing the former options – just not yet.

In spite of my best efforts my mobility was becoming more of an issue as time went on. However, I was determined not to use a cane, walker, wheelchair or any other assistive devise offered by the medical community. I was still researching other options when I stumbled upon service dogs! Of course! A perfect solution! Unfortunately service dogs are not easy to acquire, they mostly serve the blind, deaf and severely physically disabled (as they should) and the waiting list for those of us with “invisible disabilities” is long. However, my mother always said, “Where there is a will, there is a way.” Fortunately for me there was, his name was Beauregard…