It’s 20 years that I’ve dealt with my multiple sclerosis. When I first started doing research on my own illness, it was stated that most people go into the second stage of the disease after about 10 years. The second stage of the disease being secondary progressive MS. Most people start off in relapsing remitting and, at the time, it was said that 80 percent of people in this stage will go into secondary progressive around that 10 year mark. I remember asking my doctor over and over about the 10 year mark being terrified of what will happen. At my beginning there were two medicines out, Avonex and Betaseron. I was on Betaseron for 12 years. I hit the 10 year mark and the truth is I was still really relapsing MS. I would say I really went into more secondary about four years ago. That was when we were trying to play with the medicine to hold me better. I was off medicine at one point and I had that last relapse that put me over the edge and disabled me.

What I learned is that now they really don’t even discuss the stages of a MS unless somebody is primary progressive. Many times people are double stages which really I am. If I stopped all medicine, I’d have a relapse. That’s what caused that big relapse that disabled me years ago. However, no medicine is holding me from continuing to get worse, that’s the secondary. I can’t complain, can’t get angry, it is still a disease a progressive disease and I have it. I have to deal with it. It’s different for everybody some people may never go into a secondary stage. The medicines are so different today than when I was younger. You may never hit a secondary stage for 30 years or more on these medicines. MS research has made a lot of progress over these last 20 years and continues to make progress. You never know what the future’s going to hold. I don’t know how disabled I’ll be by the time things role around that can really change things and stop the progression or change and repair the Mylan sheath. I do hope if it doesn’t help me that it helps others. I really believe that MS will have, if not the cure, a very big breakthrough for people that are suffering. I really believe this will happen in my lifetime. Like I said I might be too progressed by then but I have hope for all and anybody suffering with this disease that our prayers will be answered eventually.