Janie Hewitt, who has been disabled by multiple sclerosis, agreed to tell us how she was diagnosed and how she lives with the disease day to day. She welcomed us into her home with her loyal four-legged companion.
It was the numbness in her legs that began to bother her in 2020. “This feeling lasted more than two months,” she explains to the newspaper. Obsession. Far from suspecting that a multiple sclerosis diagnosis was waiting for her three years later, Ms Heot received a shock when she fell.
“I felt like elephants were in my legs, and I couldn’t walk anymore,” she recalls.
In January 2023, the 26-year-old woman woke up in the middle of the night suffering from numbness on the left side of her body, accompanied by a serious headache. “I immediately thought I was having a stroke,” she admits.
“I then had an MRI and saw the doctor’s face, which looked worried,” Janie Hout recalls.
She received confirmation of multiple brain lesions without an accurate diagnosis. “I was told there was a tumor, there was cancer, but nothing was clear,” she says.
Through in-depth tests, after a lumbar puncture analysis by neurologists from Quebec, Janie Haut was finally able to express her suffering in words. Multiple sclerosis was coexisting in his body.
Losing your independence little by little
Even if Ms. Heot was taking monthly immunosuppressive injections to stabilize her condition, a flare-up could occur overnight.
“I don't know how quickly it will deteriorate,” she says.
Janie Hott's physical suffering is so constant that she says her cheerful personality has changed in the past year.
She needs home help weekly because she considers herself unable to stand on her feet for more than five minutes.
“The hardest thing is trying to accept the disease,” she concludes.
Janie Hout is currently fundraising for the May 26 march in Baie Comeau. Physically, it may not be possible for her to join the event, but she would like to be able to donate $500 to the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada, North Shore Section.
