Patient Stories
Patients bring the most powerful voice to any discussion about a disease. The patient stories below chronicle the experiences of patients who suffer from multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease as they describe the onset of the disease and the diagnostic process.
Lauren: When I was 16 years old, that's when I started noticing my very first symptoms. I didn't know what was happening. It was very frustrating.
Finding out that I had MS was incredibly devastating, especially because it was five days before I graduated from high school.
Jason: I was working part-time and just got promoted to full-time at work. During that time, I was also going to school full-time and I was hanging out with my friends and doing things that I enjoyed. Then I started noticing that I was getting tired when I went to do things, so riding my bike became more of a chore, going camping, I didn't have the energy that I used to. It started getting worse and I noticed it wasn't that I was just tired, I had started to lose weight.
Steve: I traveled a tremendous amount on my job. I'm a chemical engineer and I traveled all over the world. But after a while, I was starting to struggle. I was very good in math. And I started feeling sometimes that I wasn't doing as well as I was. I noticed there were gaps or things that were unusual for me. I was just so confused. So I went to my local doctor. I asked him is there any way of knowing if you're prone to get Alzheimer's? He said, “What do you mean?”
I said, "I think I have a problem."
Sylvia (Harold’s wife): “About four and a half years ago, I think Harold noticed it even before I did, he was having a little difficulty remembering things that I would have thought that would have come to him easily. Things like forgetting somebody's name, where he put his keys, that sort of thing. But he also was forgetting what the keys were for.”
Harold: I have Alzheimer's. That's my story.