Tric Chandler

If you have MS, you probably remember very well the day you were diagnosed. This is my story.

I called my primary care physician’s office on Wednesday to find out if they’d received the results from the MRI that I had done on Monday. The receptionist told me in her cheery voice: “No news is good news!”

By Friday, I was ready for the weekend and couldn’t wait to finish work and get home. I had plans with my husband at the time to go to a Social Distortion concert — a rare night out alone without our baby.

After I finished getting myself all ready for my evening plans, the phone rang. Standing in my kitchen with my 9-month-old son Jake on my left hip, I answered. It was my doctor. Why was he calling so late? Without hesitation he asked, “Are you sitting down?”

“Should I be?” I responded. There was a long pause. I didn’t sit. “Tricia, you have multiple sclerosis. I will put in a referral for you to see a neurologist.”

I honestly don’t remember anything else from the conversation, including what I said in response to him…perhaps a shocked “Thank you” before I hung up the phone.

I had no idea what multiple sclerosis was, how to spell it, what it was going to do to me, and most importantly, what it meant for my future. I held Jake in my arms and just stood there.

It was 1994. I was 23 years old.