December 6th 2006 I woke to find a small area in my left eye with what I thought at the time was an infection. I thought it woud clear up and went about my day as normal. The spot continued to grow and by the weekend I had lost half of my vision in my left. I called Dr Tanner and scheduled an appointment for the following monday. When I meet with Dr Tanner on monday I was in high spirts. I was going to get some meds, get it cleared up and get on my way. Nothing could have been further from the truth. As the examination continued I began to get a little concerned as he eliminated simple issues, then more complex ones and finally can to a diagnosis by exclusion. "At this point we have to make a diagnosis by exclusion. Since I cannot find anything else wrong with your eye we have to assume the problem is in your optic nerve." Even this statement was not a scarry thing for me. I had no idea what "optic neuritis" was and just wanted to find out how to correct it. The rest of my life changed with the next sentence. "Optic Neuritis is a leading indicator of MS." My brain went into overdrive. My chest sunk and my heart skipped a beat. MS, what? Me? This can't be right. Dr Tanner gave me the sunny side of the diagnosis and scheduled me an appointment with Dr Wooldridge for later that day for further tests. I left Dr Tanners office in a haze. Disconnected from reality and unable to form cohesive thought. I half winced in bewilderment as I walked down the long hall not fully able to grasp what had just happened. My brain was swimming. Nothing made sense. I felt fine. How could this be? As I reached my truck and closed the door a world of uncertainty and dread covered me. I looked strait ahead as the various thoughts of impending strife; some real, some imagined, scrolled through my brain. The thoughts too numerous to to count, let alone comprehend overwhelmed me. I felt the fear and emotion well up in me. I lowered my head and broke down. I just let to go. I collapsed into a ball of self pity and cried. I cried until I could not breath anymore. Then all at once my brain stopped bouncing around like a super-ball and fixated on one thought. I picked up the phone and dialed. Jess answered in her usual jovial tone. "I was just thinking about you. How did your appointment go?" How do you pick the right words for a sentence that is going to change someone's future? How does one properly phrase this information when you cannot figure it out yourself? I began slowly explaining the procedures I had gone through unsure if I should even say anything over the phone. Would it be better in person? Should I wait? Maybe I should go to this next appointment and get a better read on the situation. But I could not handle the feeling of absolute solitude anymore. I had to come to grips with this and quick. "They think I have MS." The phone went silent. The gravity of the situation was thick in the air. I did not know where to go from that sentence. I am sure her head was swimming just like mine had been thirty minutes earlier. "Well whatever the outcome we can do it together." Her words were the exact thing I needed to hear. Dr Wooldridge is a direct and pragmatic person. He was very cut and dry, quick and thorough. He ran every test conceivable and sat down with me at the end to go over the next step. "We need to schedule an MRI to make sure of what is going on. In the mean time I want you to get some blood work done." Blood work, oh man I don't like needles. I had to go back twice to get the blood drawn. They would poke me and my veins would close off like Fort Knox. But I got it done. The following day I had a MRI. A very strange experience if you have never had one. The noise level is unreal. I have had several very loud stereos in my life, this was orders of magnitude louder. The following day, December 13th, was my follow up appointment with the good doctor. Now I was hopeful. But I can read the sign posts as well. I knew that more then likely I was going to get to know this disease very well. I kept my game face on as we meet with Dr Wooldridge. "You have 13 lesions in areas consistent with MS." I was ready for that the second time around. My wife of three months tried with all her might to hold back the tears. Her eyes welled and her face flushed and my heart broke for her. Fairness is a noble thing but it is not what life has in mind.