By Tonja Condray Klein

I was diagnosed with Multiple Scleroses in 2004 after having a Grand Mal seizure. Migraine headaches happened the summer before the seizure, and some neurologists say it’s a continuum with neurological disorders. It was a sign that I didn’t know could mean something else was wrong. I’d dealt with allergies and respiratory infections since a child, so I’d taken medication for that all of my life. After several tests I was put on a MS medication, but I took it for only a year, I’m the kind of patient who researches any medicine I take to make sure it’s the best for whatever condition I have. Symptoms listed on reputable sites for regular MS didn’t match what I was experiencing, so I gradually stopped the MS medication in 2005. I still had allergies, respiratory infections, and viruses, but no symptoms like before and no seizures.

For seven years I went without any MS medications and didn’t seem to have any symptoms. Even the migraines never happened again. Then in 2012 I had two Grand Mal seizures the same day separated by hours and two trips to the hospital, where they kept me after the second seizure. I was diagnosed with Relapsing-Remitting Multiples Scleroses – RRMS – by a different Neurologist who became my new one until he retired in 2020. After I was placed on a different MS medication, I went without any problem for three years, so it had seemed I’d finally been placed on correct treatment. The MS went into remission until 2015 when the medicine injection developed a painful red rash. I went to the ER, but they said it was muscles spasms and sent me home with pain medicine. The ER doctor didn’t even check the site.

When the injection site got worse, I went to my primary care physician and she saw it was cellulitis, a dangerous situation for anyone with MS. She sent me immediately to the hospital with her referral and demand for proper care. I was there for a few days on pain medicine as they began antibiotics. They sent me home with antibiotics, but after the course at home the cellulitis again began to be so painful I was screaming and couldn’t walk. My supportive husband who is an amazing hospital IT Technician took me to the ER for the third time. Once they did extractions of the tissue in that thigh area, it turned out to be a flesh-eating infection. They began another round of antibiotics, but that wasn’t working so the physician who was a surgeon for this type of condition decided to do surgery to remove that part of my thigh.

17cm wide x 9cm high x 2cm deep was my mantra for the months after the surgery. I had to allow a nurse to then come to our place to change the dressing for my open wound that my husband and I had to change between her visits. If a catastrophe would happen in Dayton, Ohio then I would be well prepared to change wounds of anyone affected now. The fact that I had to change the bandages for the wound my husband had after surgery for a different infection also prepared me for the road to recovery of my own. What nothing prepared me for was the emotional trauma of it all, the feeling of a helplessness that I hadn’t felt as strong as I did through this. Let me try to explain. “I” am the “Go-To Girl” in my family. Though I’ve always been sickly I’ve been positive. This brought me to my knees to make me question all I believed.

Even while in the hospital I was part of a launch team for a fellow author releasing his new Christian Fantasy Novel that I texted positive responses as support. I also found out that my original song “Dancin’ on the Wind” that I wrote and sang as a recorded single was number 7 in the Fan Favorites 2015 countdown for the Sounds of the Valley radio program on local station WGNZ! In the midst of this mayhem, God Almighty was still using my music to bless others. It was humbling as I lay in the hospital bed, and I was so thankful for the blessings and talents my Creator has given to me, but I was still fighting for my life then and continued to after I got home to recover. Recovery was the dragging months of personal, mental, physical, and spiritual battles that I never would have won on my own.

While I had been in the hospital before my surgery, I had a couple of really bad moments of telling myself that I was failing because my body was weak and I couldn’t ever be what I was supposed to be as a Christian singer, songwriter, and novelist. In tears, I’d sat there one night berating myself over opportunities I had wasted and what was happening was my punishment for that failure. It was then when God Almighty, my Savior Jesus Christ had His Holy Spirit to remind me who I am by putting my own song that I’d written back in the 1980’s and released as a single in 2015 “My Captain” in my memory. My own words spoke comfort to me, and how do you deny a message that you knew was true that many decades ago? You can’t. You can try, but it will ring in your heart as the bell of victory over the lies of disease and destruction.

The moments of tears, frustration, anger, depression, uselessness, weakness, and fear can make you wish you could leave this world to be with God and those who have joined Him through Faith in Jesus already. It is such a hard temptation to resist when you know it would be so easy to give up and let the MS render you without any ability to be bothered to be used ever again. It would be so easy at times to lie down, take more pain medicine than you need, and to simply let go. It would be, but it isn’t supposed to be. Do you know why? Even if you end up in a wheelchair once you lose the ability to walk, if you can talk then you can encourage someone else. Even if you can’t see anymore, you can become a storyteller in ways you’d never imagined. “Even if” by MercyMe has meaning then and even now.

Am I always so positive? I already told that I’m not. Do I always see a way out of the moments of aggravation from not being able to do what I want or need to do but can’t because this disease stops me? No, I lose my temper, say or write things I have to ask God for forgiveness for, and try to remember that every breath I breathe is a gift from Heaven since this disease has not caused damage to my brain cells that control that. It’s the main point I’m trying to make – YOU are HERE for HIM. Even if you aren’t a Christian, YOU are HERE for HIM. Jesus knew you before you heard of Him. Jesus saw you before you were born. Jesus died for you even if you still doubt He exists. MS may take away parts of your life you will mourn, but Jesus can give life and life more abundantly to you if YOU let HIM. Even with MS.

The CIS (Clinical Isolated Syndrome), RRMS (Relapsing-Remitting), PPMS (Primary-Progressive), or SPMS (Secondary-Progressive) types of Multiple Sclerosis can destroy your life or give you a reason to fight for it. Each type has its own symptoms, treatments, challenges, and physical deteriorations that are different for each individual but can change between types. What I went through may not be what anyone else experiences, but the feelings this disease can cause can be the same for those who have any type of a disability because of MS. Before MS, I received almost a full scholarship for Computer Science major and teaching minor but had to withdraw due to missing class from allergies causing infections, but I got my Webpage Development Certificate in 1999 for business that I still use in 2020.

Since MS, I’ve published two Fantasy Novels and released my first Music EP Album of original songs I wrote and sing. I’m fighting MS all the way! I’m not some amazing exception to the rule of this disease’s horrors. This is meant to encourage those in physical battles against whatever type of this disease you have. DO NOT GIVE UP! Jesus Christ is still Lord, Savior, Healer, God Almighty as the Son, Creator, Redeemer, Forgiver, Restorer, and Source of our strength if we let Him take our burdens as we fight through Faith in Him and His Promises. Although I may eventually die from this, I will still keep fighting MS until then. Even if the feelings overwhelm me at times, and I feel like I have failed in all I’ve tried to do for Jesus and people around the world, I will still keep fighting MS. I’m in remission, but I will still fight MS!

Three MS medications failed me. This fourth one is working, but that can change at any moment. My only hope is truly in my Faith in Jesus Christ since He goes beyond anything to help with healing when we need Him. Sometimes God says, “No.” I will keep hoping that He won’t since I do believe I have more to do for Him. When the time comes for me to leave Earth for Heaven, I will be sad at what I will miss with those I love here that remain. My only Hope is that they will know Jesus as Savior and join me when it’s time for them. With the way things are in 2020, I don’t know how much time we have until ALL BELIEVERS IN CHRIST WILL BE RESCUED AND TAKEN TO HEAVEN. It will happen, and if things keep going the way they have been with the Covid-19 situation and contested election, we may leave sooner.

I have met other MS patients who have been in wheelchairs or otherwise disabled, and my heart aches for them. I can still walk, dance, talk, sing, move my hands and feet, hold things in my hands, carry things from place to place, and I otherwise have full control over my physical faculties. The only damage is that I sometimes don’t remember names like I used to be able to more easily or I forget things I need to take from one room to another before I take others and have to go back. Since I’m 48 years old, I honestly don’t think that’s too bad on the aging mentality level! I stay tired. That’s my biggest complaint, but I also have insomnia at times and use those moment to write instead of complain (if I can). My life has been good, and it still is good now. We have our good days and our bad, and I’d rather be alive and still fighting MS.

My hubby will be 53 in 2021, I’ll be 49, my sister will be 71, and my Mom will be 90. Depending on how these final Christian prophecies are met will determine if we will still be here when the ‘rescue’, ‘evacuation’, ‘catching away’, ‘Rapture’ of the Believers in the Blood of Jesus Christ will happen. We might die before millions to billions disappear at the same time here on Earth. It seems to be getting closer, and I’m hoping to go together, but regardless of that I hope that people will think about the reality of Jesus Christ, His Sacrifice on Calvary for our fallen state, and personal gift He has as Salvation by Grace and through Faith in Him so we can find the reality of eternity waiting for us. Even if MS or age takes us, we need to be ready when we meet Him once we leave this mortal body. I now have an MS-free one waiting!