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Thank you all for showing up tonight. Believe it or not I used to go to Algonquin in the 20th Century.
WOOO! Radio Broadcasting 1997 Thank You Very Much
Ummm, The reason you're all here and bidding. No One's Bidding, Why is no one bidding?
I Am! Thank you sir! Thank You.
The Reason you're here tonight is to support the MS Society and everyone says "Ya thats Great" and then you'll ask your friends like, "Whats MS?"
Who Here in this room knows what MS, or Multiple Sclerosis is? Raise your hand. Who here has absolutely no idea what Multiple Sclerosis is?
Who here has absolutely no idea what Multiple Sclerosis is? be honest here its okay, I'm not judging you. "Don't Judge Me!" We Don't Judge Here. we don't judge.
Okay, Let me tell you guys and girls what MS is.
It is an auto-immune disease where your brain but not your brain your body is attacking itself.
and what happens is it can affect men or women.
Usually people in their 20's and up sometimes it affects children
thats not good.
So what happens is that think of your brain sending signals down your spinal chord and you've got all these lots and lots of nerves,
hundreds and hundreds and thousands of nerves.
and think of them as like wires so lets say this mic wire here connecting this microphone to this sound system
as I speak it goes down here like in the nerve what happens with MS is your body attacks itself
so this little wire here is insulated so this insulation is called myelin
so imagine your body attacking itself its stripping away at the insulation on your nerve, and so eventually it will cut away the signal, so eventually you get this.
Simple little every day tasks I lost the ability to do. And all I wanted to do was sleep.
The smallest little task made me exhausted. Showering required at least an hour nap after a quick one
especially since one hand was still out of commission and the right hand was on its way to joining it.
After this tingly falling asleep nasty feeling persisted for 2 weeks I decided this wasn’t any pinched nerve and a doctors opinion would be a good idea.
I went to the walk in clinic across the street from my house at the time waited patiently and finally saw a doctor. He had me perform some simple tests like touching my hand to my nose – simple things – which I failed with flying colours.
My hand hit my cheek. However this doctor brushed me off – told me I was fine and that if this was still continuing in 2 more weeks (that would have been a month with this feeling) to come back again.
Most importantly he straight up told me it was definitely NOT MS. I remember going home – exhausted – and calling my mom and crying.
Something about what he said just didn’t sit right. Not that I ever wanted MS but with the family history it was a very real possibility.
The next day I went to the University doctor and she again did several tests on me. The major difference this time though was she actually cared and took some time to really talk to me.
One of the test she did was with the tuning key. Normally when you tap it against something and then put it against your hand or wrist you are able to feel the vibrations. I could not.
The doctor then sent me to the hospital to get a neck X-Ray which lead to an ECG (shocks into the muscles) and then MRI and then a second MRI (this time with the dye contrast injection) and finally a third and final MRI.
By this time most of the feeling had thankfully come back into my hands and I was feeling exceptionally better.
However I still did not have any answers as to what exactly caused this weird and super uncomfortable feeling for so long. After the doctor received all the MRI results back in April I thought I would finally get my answers.
All she ended up being able to tell me was that there was a chance MS was the cause she just was not qualified to diagnose it. I now had to start all over again with a neurologist.
Thankfully I got into a neurologist here in Toronto over reading week when I was planning on going home to visit my parents. That appointment on April 24th was a terrifying and relieving all at once.
Terrifying because hey I just officially found out I, at the age of 22, I have Relapsing Remitting MS.
I take comfort in knowing that a cure is close – there has been HUGE steps in figuring out what exactly causes MS as right now they have no idea.
And finally I take comfort in knowing that no matter what I have my family and friends who will always be there and people like you who in your own way, such as this RA auction are helping me and thousands of others. So thank you from the bottom of my hea