It was December 2009. Barack Obama had become the first black president a year before. United States was engaged in two wars with no end in sight. Economy had collapsed and I eagerly awaited the improvements of a stem cell treatment I had in Germany. I had gone to a Multiple Sclerosis Specialist in November and was mentally preparing myself to finally throw in the towel and go on Tysabri. A well known medication that unlike the rest of the crap they offer, actually helped people. It came with risks, the drug had been deemed wonderful before the cases of PML forced the company to pull it off the market. The drug was reintroduced due to patient's demands for the only thing that helped and doctors had to find the balance of reducing the risk of PML.
PML or Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy is a rare disorder that is caused by an infection of the brain and can cause severe disability and/or death. Despite this, patients often chose to take the risk as the benefits outweighed the potential of a risk.
In either case, after the visit to the MSS, I was given several options of which Tysabri appeared to be the best but I was unsure and the doctor told me to go home and think of what I wanted to do.
He drew a village on the paper I was sitting on. "This is the MS village," he said. "Here we have the CRAB drugs, here we have Tysabri and here we have trials." He looked at me then down again. "You need to enter the village." I was not on any MS medications due to my own reluctance given everything I had read, but Tysabri sounded good to me.
