Decisions to be made..

After my ON relapse in Feb 2016, I was set to see my neurologist mid April for a follow-up. A few weeks before seeing him I got a cold I couldn't shake and the day before I noticed my balance was a bit all over the shop (as I described it earlier, I was walking like an old drunk lady!). The day of my appointment, Nick came with me and as I shuffled into my neuro's room he asked for a run down on how I have been. When I described it to me, he was confident I was having another relapse... ANOTHER ONE! SO SOON AFTER MY LAST???? This has never happened to me before!! At that moment in time, fear set in..... My MS was suddenly becoming a little more than an inconvenience.

My neuro's thoughts we were that it was time to make the switch from my beloved BG-12, that has treated me so well, to either Tysabri, or the newest kid on the block, Lemtrada.... He sent me off with referrals for more tests and a big decision to make.... I barely made it out of his rooms and I found myself in tears... this was it... this is what had been fearing for so long now... my MS was getting worse.

Over the following week of bed rest, buying my first walking stick and tests, I started to research both Lemtrada and Tysabri. Now, I've been all about making aggressive choices when it came to dealing with my MS and felt this was no exception. I would consider Lemtrada first - provided that Nick and I were across all the side effects and that it was worth it compared to Tysabri.

My first thought was convenience, I hated the thought of once a month going to have an infusion. Cannula's and I are not besties, bff's or soul mates, we are acquaintences at best! Plus, Nick and I have an unpredictable work schedule when it came to travelling and I didn't want this burden. Secondly, I was thinking to myself, if I'm going to treat my MS, surely I want to try to halt its progression as much as possible, right? So, came the conversations with Nick over how this would affect our family and what that would mean for the rest of the year.

After reading countless academic journals, patient testimonials and statistics released (quite conveniently that very week) at the 2016 AAN conference, on the 10 year follow-up results from the original alemtuzunab trial - we decided. I was going to go for Lemtrada, provided I was a candidate for it (according to my recent results).

The day of my appointment came and as I sat down, he said that they had found a couple of new lesions in my brain and he recommended I changed therapy to either Tysabri or Lemtrada. He hadn't even finished the sentence, before I told him what I wanted and he just smiled at me and said "Let's do it".