I usually try to keep my blog un-personal (with the exception of occasional silly posts about my dog), but developments of the past 1.5 weeks are going to impact my family, my job, and my side projects.

I'm not sure how much of this floated through the grapevine - Dale and I tweeted it pretty regularly over the holiday.  Those tweets were short, so I'd like to share a synopsis of what's been going on.  Please excuse me if I reply to any emails, IMs, etc. asking about Dale's status with a heartfelt "Thank you" and a simple link to this post.

On Christmas Eve, my wife Dale began to have "strange" aching sensations in her right tricep and everything felt warm (even cold metal) to her left hamstring.  On Friday, our general practitioner drew blood, thinking a vitamin deficiency may be the cause.  After we went for a 2-3 mile walk on Sunday, her entire left leg (navel to toe) felt numb: I pinched her hard enough to leave marks and she didn't feel it.  On the advice of our GP's on-call line, we went to the emergency room to rule out stroke.

After a CT scan to rule out stroke, the doctor in the ER consulted the on-call neurologist who recommended we make an immediate appointment.  They snuck us in the next morning (Monday), performing a 2-hour exam of Dale that resulted in us going straight from the neurologists' office to our local hospital for more testing.  Dale was admitted on Monday afternoon, and discharged late Wednesday night after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (using two MRIs, spinal tap, and evoked response nerve studies).  While in the hospital, she lost the majority of her control of her right calf and foot - something very unsettling for a new mother who's used to walk 2-3 miles a day around our neighborhood.  We'll be seeking a second opinion after starting a course of treatment, but the diagnosis is "strong probable / definite" - about as sure as you can be for someone who hasn't shown symptoms for years.

Dale's current state is improving, and we're looking at a mostly full recovery of physical capabilities caused by this MS attack.  She's had a five-day course of IV steroids and its results are promising. Her right arm feels normal, the sensitivity to cold in her left leg is mellowing out, and she's barely limping on her right foot.  She can now stand, raise her right heel behind her, and grab her right foot with her right hand (earlier this week she could barely get the foot off the floor).

MS is a strange disease.  Its cause is unknown, but its mechanics have become drastically better understood in the past ten years.  MS causes the immune system to become hyperactive and results in it attacking "myelin", the fatty protective shielding around the nerves making up the spinal column, brain stem, optic nerve, and cerebellum.  Picturing our nervous system as a series of electrical wires, this is the equivalent of stripping their insulation of and causing them to short-circuit.  While myelin does regenerate, its regeneration isn't perfect, resulting in scar tissue forming on the affected nerve channels.  Each of these attacks and resulting scars may or may not temporarily or even permanently impact whatever those nerves control - the sense of touch, muscular control, or even sight.

MS is also a disease that's cyclic - it'll attack for a bit, then go into remission.  Most modern treatment (interferon-based) currently focuses on increasing the period of remission between attacks (or "flare-ups").

I can't say this isn't going to impact me me professionaly.  Different MS patients' attacks are brought on by different stimuli.  For Dale, we believe stress is a primary cause:  it's one of the most common, and our past few months have been loaded with it, both from my job and from family.  We've had Thanksgiving, Ava's first birthday, and Christmas in rapid succession, and I've been doing fairly frequent trips to California as well as late nights on Skype with coworkers on the West Coast. 

Thank you all for the understanding and support the ColdFusion, Flex, and general Adobe community has shown.  We're trying to be open about everything that's going on, and sharing has helped both Dale and myself a good deal over the past week.  Please feel free to ask any questions you may have.  If you know anyone with MS, we're looking to make as many connections within the MS community as possible.

Finally, my wife kicks ass.  On Saturday, I was feeling in the dumps:  I know I can't control it and it's not my fault, but when I looked in on my wife hooked up to an IV drop in our living room, I felt like a failure, like I had missed something I could've somehow helped, as if I'd let her down.  Despite her own issues, she cheered me up with something she did the moment she came home:  she had decorated her IV pole with Christmas lights.  How could I let it get me down any more when she's facing it with that kind of attitude?