June 16, 2013
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Update on My Brother
He went to the Cleveland Clinic on Friday and was officially diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. We are sad, but we are happy to finally figure out what’s been wrong with him these past four years.
When they gave him the bad news on Friday, they set him up with an IV that pumped 1000 ml of steroids into his body. They will do the same for two more days. They are giving him some more medicine that will mask his symptoms for the next couple months. After that, they will start him on some medicine combinations and diets that should help him along for the rest of his life.
I want to say that he’s got a long battle a head of himself, but the long battle happens to be the rest of his life. It’s a terrible, debilitating illness, and I can’t believe something like this would ever happen to him. Right now, he can’t work or do the things he likes to do. He’s uncomfortable in his own skin, and I can’t imagine how he feels right now. I’m very sad over this, but he is in high spirits, and that is all I can ask for right now.
It’s not the end. It’s just the beginning. MS treatments have come a long way in even a few short years. We don’t know what the future holds, but even though this sucks terribly, we are very hopeful.
Thank you for your prayers, and please continue to pray for him. He really appreciates it.
Comments (13)
Well the unknown is now known but the cure? So far there is no cure but maybe a possibility of a miracle.
It is a rough road but a dear family friend has suffered with MS for over 30 years. Her husband made her work her muscles to keep her legs in shape (and still does) and only recently, has she given up jogging. She (she just turned 64 recently feels like she wants to give in some days to a wheelchair but she isn’t. I recall the terror she felt and how she never gives in. I will be keeping your brother close in my thoughts and prayers! Chin up!
I am very sorry your brother has MS. i sure hope new medication and treatments will be successful. This will be hard on everyone, but his attitude seems good.
I said a prayer for him.
frank
That is a devastating illness. I’ve known a handful of people with it, in various conditions.
On an upnote, I recently heard a new treatment is being explored with some very promising results. Perhaps it will bear fruit, soon.
*many much hugs to you, your brother, and your family*
I am truely sorry. He faces a difficult road, but there is nothing that says his road is truly harder than the roads orhers must face.
My new sister-in-law lost her only daughter to a terrible car crash. A year later she buried her only son, after he commited suicide.
I would never attempt to judge who has the harder road, my new sister or your brother. But perhaps there is perspective, hope, and even encouragement in seeing our life struggle in the light of the struggles of others. When we struggle together we find the burden not doubled, but halved. So where is your place in your brother’s struggle? Where is the hope and encouragement you bring to his situation?
”In this life you will have hardship, but take heart, for I have overcome the world.” - Jesus of Nazareth. Where is Jesus overcoming in and through you? There is great potential for greater love, deeper relationship, amazing joys, right along with the struggle and pain. Christ overcomes our worlds in ways we never dreamed possible, but we have to be open to his ways.
I don’t mean to toss around cliched religious rhetoric. These are questions I’ve started asking myself in my own circumstances, and my ability to see differently has improved. I hope only to offer a beginning to a different way of looking at our circumstances.
Prayers lifted, not only for your brother, but the whole family as you deal with the news, and ensuing changes.
The good news about MS is that they’re making a lot of progress on understanding the cause. There’s some current thinking that it may be linked to bacterial imbalances in the gut which could be very easily treatable
http://www.fecalmicrobiotatransplant.com/2012/08/could-multiple-sclerosis-be-caused-by.html
We will, meaning our Assembly have your brother in prayer. And he will have a hard road ahead, but with prayers, a loving family and keeping is attitude up will help. If you need to talk one on one message me, and here is my new place when this goes away.
http://www.blogster.com/brotherdocs Bro. Doc
@PPhilip - I’m certainly praying for a miracle, but in the very least, comfort.
@GoneRetired - Thanks for the prayers
@HUMOR_ME_NOW - His attitude has been awesome. Thanks for your prayer
@BookMark61 - The doctors at the Cleveland Clinic assured my brother that they are making big discoveries with this illness and that they will give him the best treatment they can. It’s good to hear about the possibilities of better medicines and better knowledge of the disease.
@Ooglick - Thank you.
@Such_are_you - One of the hardest things to get passed is, “Why him?”. He was so athletic, so fit, and so talented, and not to mention, so young. I’ve been asking God, “Why didn’t this happen to me instead?” I mean, I have a lot less to lose than my brother who was wanting to join the police academy before this illness grabbed him, but of course, it’s only out of frustration and a feeling of lack of fairness. Sometimes we have to accept the difficult and unfair cards we are dealt… and it often takes time to get over a bad hand. My only hope is that my brother could see Jesus at work through this, but I can’t be the one to show him, for various reasons.
@Crystalinne - We really appreciate it.
@kk_grayfox - Way cool! Thanks for the site. I will forward that to my bro.
@BroDoc - Thank you so much
We had prayer from him this evening at our Study night and he is on the prayer list. Bro. Doc
@jmallory - Jimmy I can tell you that life isn’t fair, but that won’t change how you feel. God isn’t fair, God is righteous, God is holy, but not what you and I mean when we say fair. God never promises everything that happens to us will be good. In fact Jesus promises that we will have trouble. God only promises that he will use everything for good, both good things that happen and bad things that happen. I believe God knows the future, Jimmy, and I believe he already has a plan for your brother. I’d start praying for God to reveal that plan, and for God to find you a place in that plan. You may not be able to reach your brother directly, but Christ can still reach him through your relationship with him. It’s not gonna be so much what you say as it is what you will do. Show Christ by the way you live before your brother. Show Christ by inviting and allowing Christ to rule your troubled heart and allowing him to give you that peace only he can give. The peace of Christ, which defies understanding, is something even others can feel upon us and coming out from us. God makes a way where there is no way.
A couple of researchers have been putting forth some bold new thinking about the causes of both MS and schizophrenia. The latest is that both of the disease actually come from latent retroviruses within every DNA helix of ever human being. Due to an immune response, triggered in a new born baby, these retroviruses begin to replicate until the signs of the disease manifest themselves in late adolescence or early adulthood. I’d go dig up the links for you, but I’m on my out the door to work. Just Google MS and retrovirus and you should be able to find something.
Jimmy, I’ll keep you and your family in my prayers.