Teesside woman opens up about living with multiple sclerosis
Julia Taylor was diagnosed with MS 20 years ago
A Teesside woman's opening up about what it's like to live with multiple sclerosis.
53 year-old Julia Taylor from Middlesbrough was diagnosed 20 years ago.
She says she's slowly losing her voice as speaking for long periods of time is becoming more difficult and she's also had to adapt her home as well as her job in order to try and live her life to the fullest.
Julia said: "At the time, I thought of all the people to get MS, it had to be me. I was quite shocked and I was fearful for the future. I thought 'I've got MS, MS hasn't got me.' I'll just plough on and keep going forward.
"I went to the RVI because I lost the sight in my right eye and there was just light shining round and I thought there's something wrong and I couldn't see properly at all and there was like this rainbow colour going around and I thought 'there's something not right here.' So I went to the opticians initially and I thought 'I've got a brain tumour.'
"At the hospital, the woman said to me, what's your view of somebody with multiple sclerosis? I went, 'somebody crippled in a wheelchair?' Because that's what I thought. I did think, oh my God, what's it going to be like when I'm 40, when I'm 50? Every 4 weeks I have to go to the hospital and now when I go into that clinic, there's always somebody there worse off than me. And I look and I think I'm lucky.
"They did this test on my feet because I couldn't feel my feet, they were poking pins in my legs and I couldn't feel the left side of my legs. And within six months of that appointment, I was diagnosed with MS. I couldn't believe it because I thought, well, I'm all right, you know. But gradually it got worse and I've had two really bad relapses.
"I do struggle to walk and I can't feel my left foot. If I'm going downstairs, I've really got to concentrate. I can't stand on one leg. I can't stand still because I lose my balance, so I've got to have a bath instead of a shower. If I'm cooking I'd have no fingers left if I had to chop the veg myself. It would be a total disaster.
"I can't cook independently. I've nearly set fire in the kitchen twice as I forget about it. I forget little things like I can't do two things at once, so if I'm cooking and somebody rings me, I'll forget that I'm cooking.
"Losing my voice is frightening because I never shut up normally so I've got to be careful about what I say and how much I say and I try just to say what's needed and that's very, very difficult for me. Yes I'm talking now but if I talk too much later on I'll struggle and I'll have shooting pains across my face and that's because my MS changed the shape of my brain.
"Sometimes people look at me and I know that they're laughing, but I know they're thinking, 'look, the state of that woman, she's just absolutely plastered.' And I'm not. I feel like I should wear a t-shirt that says 'I've got MS, I'm really not drunk.'
"I'll be reading and then all of a sudden some letters will disappear and I'll only see the last three letters of each word. Some symptoms are numbness, pins and needles, and tingliness. It doesn't mean you've got MS, but you should go and get checked, especially if it continues. I had a numb left foot for years before I even got diagnosed and I was thinking it's bad circulation."
Julia's hoping her experience will make people get themselves checked.
She has has turned her passion for dementia care into a children's book and hopes that her book will do some of the talking for her.