TRACY NEAL
Sarah Jones
Letters to Live By
Living and thriving with MS Our Letters to Live By column asks Nelsonians to pen a letter to their fellow citizens, telling their story. This month, read how Sarah Jones was diagnosed with a serious illness and how addressing her assailant head-on is helping her to win the battle.
I
n December 2018 my fingertips went numb. Pain in my hands increased over 10 weeks until it felt like they were being constantly crushed. Let’s skim over a few agonising weeks and all the testing to no avail. I was in despair at continually being told a referral to a neurologist was months away. That seemed simply impossible. My GP and the doctors at Nelson Hospital’s Accident and Emergency Department were awesome - we talked over other options.
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October 2021
We – my family, paid to see a neurologist privately, and for a raft of tests and an MRI - the cost hurt almost as much as my hands. MRI’s showed a spinal cord lesion that had doubled in size in six weeks. In hindsight, getting fast information was invaluable and almost certainly avoided further nerve damage. After a lifetime of good health, at age 49, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. No previous signs, no family history, but there it was.
