I would like to take time and introduce myself.
My name is Al Weger and I am 41 years old. At the age of 7, I woke up and
started crawling around the house. In a matter of hours, I was hospitalized
and unable to move my legs. I was quarantined becaused they didn't know what
was wrong with me. Everyday they would come in with a pin and stick me to see
what I could feel. I have blocked much of the hospital stay out of my mind
but at its worst, I could only move my eyes. Then, six weeks later, it
started to go away. I was allowed to go home but they were not sure what the
recovery would be like. At some point during my hospital stay I was diagnosed
with Tranverse Myelitis.
After about six weeks of daily physical therapy, I began to walk again and
resumed a somewhat "normal" childhood. My largest deficit was in the
bladder/bowels as the nerves were damaged and had little, if any control. As
you can guess, this did create some problems but I always looked at it as it
could have been worse.
Approximately 3 - 4 years ago, I began having "Multiple Sclerosis like"
symptoms. Between living in Connecticut and now in Florida, I have been to 4
private neurologists and one at Yale University. My last two neurologists
have diagnosed me with probable MS. And one of them believes that I probably
had MS as a kid which then caused and/or lead into the transverse myelitis
and now reoccurring as adult MS.
As I have gotten older and more health problems are developing I am trying to
find out as much as possible about transverse myelitis and as you know, it
can be difficult.
I thank Jim Lubin for starting this list as a means of collecting peoples
thoughts and ideas about transverse myelitis.
I look forward to hearing from all of you in the very near future.
Al Weger
weger(AT)aol.com