Around and Around Some More

Been waiting forever to hear back on my FMLA paperwork, the only notification from the company handling my employer's claims a denial letter because they had not received the health care provider certification - which was faxed to them 3 weeks ago. They "found" it today, misplaced, but fortunately they had stamped the fax date and time received and it won't affect my case. I just need to wait for their next letter.

I saw my neurologist last week, and for the first time in the many years I have seen her I was irked. I had to make the appointment to come in, only to be told "there's nothing we can do right now because of your pregnancy."

I looked up the prescribing information on Copaxone, which is a pregnancy class B medication. That indicates a fair level of safety for use in pregnancy. However, the pregnancy itself generally quells relapses, so it's apparently not necessary. Fine, I can accept that. I don't really want to use Copaxone, but I don't know much about the other medications for MS, so I need to do some research. Not that it matters, since none will be prescribed anyhow until after I deliver AND provided I do not breastfeed.

In the meantime, I am not allowed to use Provigil or Lyrica for treatment of my symptoms - which do not diminish in the way relapses of the actual disease do. They are residual, they will continue (and continue to worsen), and I am in misery. Both are pregnancy class C medications, with a higher risk for use in pregnancy, only to be used when the benefits outweigh the risks of their use. Until I see my OB/GYN, though - they are out of the question, and even then there is no guarantee he will see any benefits outweighing the risks (which I admit will be a point of contention with me, seeing as how I am in severe pain and suffering the effects of "intractable and overwhelming fatigue).

What had me irked, though, was the fact that I had to go in for nothing - and she wants me to return in 4 months (while I am still pregnant, obviously) - again for nothing. Because she is the one signing my FMLA paperwork, I have little choice but to comply.

Her office staff gave me a copy of the FMLA paperwork (because the company handling my case claimed they did not have it, and I was going to fax it to them myself). I have burst into tears several times on reading them, and for some morbid reason I cannot tear my eyes away from them. Four benign-appearing sheets of paper, at first glance.

It is one thing to read literature about MS and the effects of the disease, how it can affect a person, outcomes, and prognoses. They are clinical, impersonal, describing a faceless, nameless patient.

It is entirely another to see things like "Probable duration of condition: Lifetime" and "Beginning and end dates for the period of incapacity: Permanent" when your name is sitting next to it in black and white.

It brings home a reality that had in many ways been able to be denied, disregarded, ignored; unfortunately, the illusion (and delusion) cannot last forever.