Even before having the 9th Tysabri infusion and having an appointment with my cranial doctor (he was the first doctor to tell me that I was doing well, even before I had my 10th MRI done that proved his point) I continue to walk really well.
Now, I can walk really fast (just as fast as I used to walk before MS) and I can do hills without holding on to anyone. I can walk really fast for 20 minutes or so before my left leg starts to get tired and then I need only a few minutes before I get the strength back and before I am ready to walk again.
I do have more symptoms then when I was in Italy and I have the proof that the main reason for their return is the stress that I feel when I am back to my usual life. I never mentioned it before because I already had many things to talk about.

The Tysabri infusion, that I had on the 7th of the month, didn’t start too well because I admit that I wasn’t thrilled about taking the medicine again and being reminded that I have MS…something that I sometimes forgot to have when I was back in my country. Taking Tysabri made me “remember” to have MS and caused my veins to close up and they didn’t want to let it go inside of me! Because I believe that there are many ways that we can convince our minds to “cooperate” I took out the camera that I usually carry with me and I started looking at the many pictures that I took in Italy. I stopped on two of them: one that shows San Francesco (Saint Francis of Assisi) and one that sees me together with my friend Francesca hugging inside the arms of an olive tree!
I looked at the photos and I let my mind go back to those precious moments and I guess I relaxed enough to let my body allow Tysabri to enter…

October 19th was a very special day for me: I walked really fast for 20 minutes covering a distance of 1 MILE!
The park where I walk with my husband is filled with steep hills and except when I go down the hills and I have to hold on to my husband’s hand, I walk really fast without holding on to anything and I reached my destination with my knee still in a very good shape…It’s crazy to think that this happened one day before the 3 year anniversary of my first hospitalization for my first MS attack!
I have come a long way!
The last few days of the month were quite difficult for me because I found myself having the cognitive problems that I hate and that I am so worried about. I was back to feeling extremely confused, not being able to understand things very well and not being able to find the words to express myself correctly and, once again, I am ready to assure everyone that, if I could, I would choose physical pain over having cognitive difficulties!
There is nothing scarier and most disheartening than not being able to use your mind freely and I can say that I consider this problem to be the WORST symptom of my MS.
I have tried plenty of symptoms, maybe way too many for being so early in the disease, and all I can say is that there is nothing that worries me more than not being able to control my thoughts and to express myself the way I want to. Usually, going back and fourth from speaking Italian to English and viceversa hasn’t been a major problem yet, but I remember very few times in Italy when, after speaking English to my husband Keith, I would take a little while before being able to start to speak fluent in Italian. Thankfully, that was never a major problem and the two languages have never been affected yet, but many other things about my cognition were having problems and I almost found myself looking forward to taking Tysabri because I wanted to see if it was going to help me in some way.

The infusion happened on the 4th of the month and, because of the symptoms that I mentioned before, I wasn’t able to get the medicine right away and I had to wait a little to find out that it was ok for me to take it.