Diagnosed with MS!

There’s no denying that the last few years haven’t been the easiest for me. Whilst I was flying high professionally, working a job that I honestly never dreamed of getting given my background, my health was somewhat subpar. I was battling with nearly constant exhaustion & brain fog, had intermittent trouble walking or keeping my balance, and experienced regular bouts of numbness in my fingers and hands, sometimes to the extent that it was difficult for me to type or hold a mouse. Not really ideal when you’re flying a desk like I was. To be honest though, I never really paid much attention to these issues, putting them down to stress relating to work, the loss of my parents in 2017, the 2020 pandemic, and the fact that the world was going to hell in a handbasket.

However, things took a turn from 2024 onward. The brain fog and exhaustion that had been a constant but not overwhelming presence in my life began to take over, eventually forcing me to have to leave my job in the fall of 2024. My leg issues got worse as well, leaving me incapable of putting one foot in front of the other at times. One of these episodes sent me to the emergency room at Cork’s Mercy Hospital only a few weeks after leaving my job, and a mere two weeks before a trip of a lifetime to Norway. However, despite intense diagnostic tests including a CT scan that confirmed that yes, I do actually have a brain, the doctors were unable to find anything that could explain the issues. Thankfully though, they were able to rule out a stroke, which was a massive relief.

When I first ended up at A&E at the Mercy Hospital, I still believed that I was dealing with something stress-related.

As good as the food at the Mercy continues to be, my stays there did not provide any indication as to what might be going on.

Things seemed to recover afterward, and I actually felt pretty good for much of the first half of 2025. Well, once the winter depression had worn off anyway. However, in August 2025, things started all over again. Just a few weeks before starting a software development course, a new bout of leg trouble left me stranded in my local supermarket. And saw me sent to the emergency room yet again. The diagnostic tests were once again thorough, but whilst there was still no answer as to what was causing these issues, now there was at least a reproducible symptom that showed up in the shape of foot drop. That was something at least, and a quick check with my GP saw me sent in for an MRI which…didn’t work. 

Sigh… 

For some reason, lying down on the MRI machine’s “loading rail” triggered an immediate gag reflex, making it impossible for me to even get loaded into the “tube”. 

And so it was back to my GP, who referred me on to a consultant neurologist at Cork University Hospital. I still didn’t have an answer, but at least my symptoms were taken seriously, both by my GP and my neurologist. Another battery of tests followed, as did another unsuccessful attempt at an MRI in December 2025, all of this taking place against the backdrop of a high intensity coding bootcamp I was doing at the same time. Unfortunately, at about the same time my neurologist referred me for another MRI, I suffered another flare-up of whatever it was I was dealing with. With less than a month to go before I was due to hand in my final coding project for the bootcamp, I found myself struggling to type or to even hold a computer mouse with my right hand. I was able to work around this using voice input, Microsoft Copilot, and a decade old Magic Trackpad I’d swiped of my mom’s desk after she’d passed away in 2017, but I did have to ask for an extension of the deadline, which was thankfully granted.

Thus, I started 2026 still not knowing what I was actually dealing with. I had a suspicion, one that I’d held since September 2025, but I was not about to let my personal feelings and foibles get in the way of proper medical work. However, at a meeting with my neurologist in January 2026, he told me that he was 80% sure that what I was dealing with was multiple sclerosis. According to him, the symptoms were a clear indicator of that, as was the fact that the symptoms were waxing and waning, rather than remaining constant. However, he needed firm proof for a proper diagnosis, since the symptoms could be an indicator of other issues as well. As such, he wanted me to try for another MRI, a faster one this time primarily focused on my brain. He also upped the dosage of anti-nausea medication that he’d prescribed for the last MRI to make sure that I could actually stay in the tube for long enough. I was also to undergo a lumbar puncture and got a prescription for a three-week course of antibiotics to rule out the outside possibility of Lyme disease, one of the other potential causes of my symptoms.

And what do you know? It worked. At least partially. Whilst the Julius Caesar experience (a.k.a. the lumbar puncture) failed to yield any results, I was able to tolerate the MRI for long enough to get at least a few decent scans of my brain. Apparently, the cooling effect of really strong mints was enough to overpower the gag reflex. Either way, these scans finally provided the smoking gun that my neurologist had been looking for. According to him, they clearly showed the types of lesions typical for multiple sclerosis, effectively ruling out any other causes.

To be honest, I wasn’t actually that surprised. I’d been suspecting that this might be the case since autumn, funnily enough due to one of my new TV obsessions, The West Wing. For those that haven’t watched that, the president suffering from multiple sclerosis is a key plot point in the early seasons. Also, go watch The West Wing! It’s one of the best TV shows out there! Anyway, I’d told both my GP and my neurologist about my suspicion, and to be fair, neither dismissed it out of hand. You can’t base a diagnosis off of an early 2000s political show though, no matter how well written it is, hence all the tests. 

And to be fair, these tests did rule out another major candidate of mine, one that I had been dreading: Cancer. When my mom’s cancer had returned, it first showed itself as a small tumour in the spine, just big enough to impinge on some nerves and cause her trouble walking. Needless to say, when my own leg troubles started, I was absolutely terrified that the big C might be coming for me next. Thankfully, this was ruled out relatively early in the diagnostic process, primarily to the flare-ups and remissions I was experiencing, but I cannot tell you how much of a relief it was to hear this from the mouth of a medical professional!

But what exactly is Multiple Sclerosis?

It’s an autoimmune disease. Or, to put it into words those of us without crippling student debt can understand, the immune system is attacking its own body. In the case of MS, this comes in the shape of certain types of white blood cells attacking the myelin sheath surrounding nerve fibres in the central nervous system, that is to say the brain and the spinal cord. This myelin sheath works like the plastic jacket surrounding electrical (or network) cables, so think of it like rodents gnawing through a cable. These damaged fibres can cause nerve signals to become distorted or completely blocked, leading to things such as a loss of motor control or sensation in certain body parts, vision problems, brain fog, fatigue and other similar issues. Crucially, these damaged fibres eventually develop scar tissue, causing the lesions that show up on MRI scans and serve as the primary indicator for an MS diagnosis. 

Simply put, I’m getting on my own nerves!

I’d recommend checking out the website of the MS Society of Ireland, they have a much better overview over the symptoms and characteristics of MS than I can come up with on my rather obscure blog. One thing that is important to know with regard to the disease is that it does not progress linearly. The human nervous system has a remarkable capacity for regeneration and healing. It can grow new neural pathways to bypass damaged sections, and this neuroplasticity allows or symptoms to ease off or disappear completely. Unfortunately, cumulative damage from multiple relapses can cause permanent damage. Most importantly, whilst there is currently no known cure for MS, there are therapies available that slow down the progression of the disease, creating more space for the body to repair some of the damage. As I’m writing this, I’m waiting for such a therapy to start, and you can bet whatever money you still have available that that’ll get its own post once things kick off!

So, where does that leave me? 

Well, for starters, I now know my enemy, know what I’m up against. It’s always easier to deal with something when you have a name for it. More importantly, I also know that it’s not cancer that’s causing my problems. I know that there are treatments available for me that’ll allow me to live for decades without major impairment, and research is progressing at an incredible speed in that regard. Also, I feel like my case is very much on the lighter side of things, and there are people out there that are having it much worse than I do!

Having said that, I also need to come to terms with the fact that I’m dealing with something that, whilst very much treatable, has no known cure at this time, which does weigh on my mind quite a bit. At the time of writing, my diagnosis is less than a month old, so it’s all very fresh in my mind. In a way, I got lucky in that the diagnosis happened just as Artemis II was beginning its journey to the moon. I am very much a space nerd, and the sheer glee of having another lunar mission happen in my lifetime, combined with the incredible amount of moon joy brought on by the Artemis II crew both in space and on the ground, kept my mind busy and positive at a time when I really needed that.

Still, I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t anxious, worried, or even scared shitless at times. As I’ve mentioned before, MS is currently incurable and permanent impairment due to cumulative nerve damage caused by multiple relapses is very much a possibility. I’m trying to prepare myself as much as possible, getting my ducks in a row and trying to put a structure in place that’ll allow me to deal with the disease and any side effects as best as possible, a blog post on that is already in the works! I’ve always been pretty good when it comes to dealing with major changes, so calling out my mental damage control parties isn’t exactly new to me. And at the end of the day, I’m still me, nothing has changed in that regard. Still, I feel like the waters I’m sailing in have suddenly become much choppier.