Rachel (60), Croatia
About myself
I had my first attack 6, Jan, 1979, six months befort finishing my Ph.D. in Music.It began with paresthesia in my hands making it difficult to play the piano, a little bit of a problem for a piano teacher. The paresthesia spread to the entire front of my body. The doctor I saw dismissed my symptoms as impossible, and although he didn't say it, I could tell he had diagnosed my condition as "Bored Housewife Syndrome." The symptoms went away after a few months and by graduation I was fine and the symptoms were forgotten. In June, 1983 I married the love of my life and five months later I had another attack. It started the same way. I told my husband I didn't know what it was but I had it before and it's back. This time a different doctor took me seriously and sent me to a neurologist who did some LOVELY tests and concluded that I probably had MS but he couldn't be sure since my previous doctor had not sent me to a neurologist. Eventually a trip to Mayo in Rochester concluded that I did in fact have MS.
Relapsing Remitting continued for a few years, and then as I got older the attacks mostly stopped and I just got worse. In the mid eighties I started using a scooter at every opportunity and finally bought one of my own. Life became much simpler. My condition continued to deteriorate to the point that I was relying almost completely on the scooter. In 2001 we moved to Dubrovnik, Croatia, an unlikely place, and quite impractical for someone who can't climb stairs.
In 2004 Dubrovnik got its own chapter of the Croatian National Multiple Sclerosis Society and at the first meeting a physical therapist offered a treatment called Seltzer (after the doctor who developed it) I didn't know what it was or what if anything to expect from it. I just knew that it included massage, so I was happy to try it. It consisted of lymphatic drainage massage followed by ultrasound, doing the neck (from the front) one day and the back the next day. The regimen took 24 days, and is fillowed by a full body massage every two weeks. As I said, I was just in it for the massages, but suddenly I was able to walk like a normal person and even zip up and down stairs.. I continue to get the Seltzer Treatment every six months and have my bi-weekly massages, and I continue to walk anywhere I want to go. The treatment does not work for everybody, but it does work for some and I am the "poster child" for the ones on whom it works.
After I figured out that I really was able to walk anywhere I figured out that I would be able to enter and attend a church, and even go up to the choir loft and sing in the choir.I am now choir director for the adult choir at the mnastery a few blocks from my house and accompanist and sometimes director for the children's choir. Until recently I sang with the youth choir but quit because I really was working too hard. They hated to see me go and said If I want to join them all I have to do is just show up. (Not bad for a 60-year-old)
I am sixty years old and have had MS for thirty-one years, a little over half my life. Needless to say there is a lot more, but because I have MS, I can't remember it now, so I'll close.
About my picture
This is beautiful Dubrovnik, Croatia where I go to recharge my batteries. My husband and I take a stroll up and down the Stradun (main street/plaza) looking for people we know - friends or relatives. In years past I would have taken this "Stroll" on my electric scooter, but now I am able to take this stroll on foot. When it's time for a break we find a coffee shop with a view and watch people go by - people we know and the many tourists who come flooding by. They are all part of the free show. Dubrovnik is right on the Adriatic sea and sometimes our strolls take us by the sea outside the city walls.
