Thanks for asking

Many of you have asked about Mom's appointment. She had the MRI and then we met with the doctor Monday afternoon. He said the MRI showed what he expected of chronic MS. Her brain and spinal cord are shrinking. The reason she has so much problems with her legs is because of the shrinkage of her spinal cord.

At this time she doesn't have any active lesions, but she does have scar tissue from the one that's caused her memory problem. I wasn't sure how long a lesion was active so I asked him. He said they are active anywhere from a week to a month. Sometimes the brain recovers from them and you'd never know they were there. Other times they cause scar tissue and cause long term damage.

He switched some of her medications around and also put her on Aricept, which is a drug for Alzheimers. I really hope it works. He said that the dementia will just get worse, but hopefully the Aricept will slow it down.

They give my mom a test each time she's there. They ask her such questions as the county she's in, the day of the week, the date - those type of things. Last time she answered the day wrong, but the girl didn't call her on it. She's not good at lists either. They are hard for her and rile her up. This time she did ok with the list. She got all the things right. The hard part for her, and for me watching, was the date. She had no idea what day it was. She said "I didn't watch TV last night, so I don't know what day it is." She didn't want to guess either. They asked her the date. It made me so sad to see her struggle. Then she said "Well, I know it's February. Maybe I can figure it out. Ok, I know that Valentine's Day is February 15th and it was on a Thursday." I closed my eyes and wished I was anywhere but there. She'd just gotten the day of the week wrong and even the littlest amount of stress makes her memory worse.

When the nurse left the room, Mom said "I think I did better on that test then the last time we were here." She was incorrect. She did better the last time. She also told the nurse that she didn't seem to forget things as much as she was in the past. Incorrect again.

It was hard. I just don't understand why MS wasn't enough. Why dementia too? I just don't get it. Don't get me wrong; I'm glad she's alive and we don't have to visit her in a cemetery, but for crying out loud!

Anyway, that's how her appointment went. I know things could be worse - I know that. She's only 63 years old and sometimes can't remember not what she ate for lunch - but IF she ate lunch.

Thanks for asking - I sincerely appreciate it.