Neuro Note - Multiple Sclerosis - Breea's Story

For this week’s neuro note, I chose to watch Multiple Sclerosis – Breea’s Story on YouTube. Breea was 18 years old, a cheerleader, and enjoying her senior year of high school. On the morning of December 8^th, 2011 she began to feel ill. She lost feeling in her left arm and leg and was losing her vision. She was taken to the hospital where she was diagnosed with severe onset of multiple sclerosis (MS). She had paralysis on her left side, became blind in her left eye, and could not talk or swallow. She spent 6 weeks in the hospital where she had 7 blood transfusions and monthly Tysabri infusions. Tysabri is a disease modifying drug used to very active relapsing remitting MS. After 46 days in the hospital she was able to go home and receive home therapy services.  She spent most of her time in rehab relearning how to walk and to regain mobility and strength in her left arm and hand.

I chose to watch this video, because I wanted to learn more about MS. Lindie chose this story for her case study and after she presented this week, I knew I wanted to watch Breea’s story. Being an athlete in high school, I could not imagine waking up one day and being diagnosed with MS during my senior year. Through watching this video, I have learned that MS can happen at any time in life, to anybody. It is a disease that is very unpredictable and effects everyone differently. In Breea’s case, she went from no motor function to walking and doing backbend flips 8 months following her diagnosis. Although there is not cure, Breea worked extremely hard to overcome her challenges. Throughout the entire video she almost always had a smile on her face and she did not let MS define who she was. She wrote her college admissions essay from the hospital room, continued to spend time with her friends and do all the other things typical teenagers do. She went on to attend college at NAU where she joined Alpha Phi Sorority. I recommend watching this video, as it showed pictures and videos in the beginning days of her diagnosis and videos from her in rehab. It shows a good insight to what it was like for a teenage girl to live with MS. 

Breearennebeatsms. (2012, September 8). Multiple Sclerosis – Breea’s Story. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfD9s1_TN0s