My First Multiple Sclerosis Symptom
After much thinking and remembering, the first if not the very first symptom of my MS was intolerance to heat. This would have been around 1972 or '73. I would have been 14 or 15 years old. Of course, at the time I didn't know it was a symptom of MS. I would be in the backyard playing ball or mowing the grass. I always thought our backyard was really hot so I'd be sweating which is normal. When I went back in I would head down to the basement where it was very cool. This was 48 years ago but I can still remember my walking would be unsteady and my skin felt like it was crawling. At this time we didn't have air conditioning and I'd have the strange feelings for an hour or until I cooled off.
As a teenager, I practiced or played baseball in our backyard every day in the summertime. We had a round picnic table in our backyard that the family didn't use very much. One day I got the idea to tip the table on its side and throw a tennis ball at it. To my surprise, the ball came back to me in the air! I caught the tennis ball and threw it a second time. Again, it came right back to me. It seemed when the picnic table was on its side it was angled just enough to return balls to the thrower waist to chest high! I was happy because I could play catch with myself if no one else was around.
The bottom 1/3 of our house in the backyard was cement. I got the idea to throw the tennis ball against the bottom 1/3 of our house. The bottom 1/3 was cement blocks. I'd throw the ball lower and it would come back to me on the ground like a ground ball to an infielder in baseball. On hot summer days, I might spend 1/2 hour to an hour throwing tennis balls against the cement block and the picnic table. I'd come in sweating like pig and having those same funny feelings as in paragraph one.
Scooterjon
