How Multiple Sclerosis has impacted on my pharmacy career
By Nalwenga Mutambo, Pharmacist and PDA Ability Network member
My name is Nalwenga Mutambo. I am a Pharmacist; I am a mother and I have Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Before I was diagnosed, I knew nothing about MS – it’s not something I learned about at university. It’s not something that I routinely came across during my practice; not like diabetes or asthma. It never even crossed my mind that this could happen to me, but it did.
My first attack happened during my second year working in hospital pharmacy; my career was going in the direction I always envisioned. I had successfully moved from community to hospital, and I was working towards gaining my post graduate diploma. It all started with slight tingling in my feet, so trivial, it was a symptom I could just dismiss. I also started to feel tired, all the time, but it was understandable – I was stressed. As well as working in a hospital pharmacy, I was working as a locum, so I was used to feeling run down, but this was a different kind of tired. No matter how much I slept it wouldn’t go away; this fatigue was in my muscles, I woke up every day feeling like I had just run a marathon. It was in my head, I couldn’t think, I was forgetting words, I had a bad memory and I would lose my train of thought (they call this cog fog). I decided to reduce the amount of locum shifts I was doing, as I was worried about making an error.
I then started to get burning sensations in my legs, vertigo, loss of sensation in my feet, problems concentrating, poor hand-eye co-ordination, poor motor skills (at one point I couldn’t hold a pen…not great when your work is 70% paper based) and problems with my balance. All of this whilst working on a busy acute admissions ward. In hindsight, I can say it was one of the hardest points of my life. Whilst new symptoms started appearing, I was desperate to get answers from the doctors. I have seen my share of GPs and nurse practitioners; had numerous blood tests and been told to try running because I was stressed, but still no one had an answer. Finally (after 7 months) I was referred to a neurologist who after more blood tests and one lumber puncture was able to tell me “You have multiple sclerosis.” Although devastated by the diagnosis, I was happy to have some confirmation that it wasn’t all in my head, my symptoms have a name.
Now I am more knowledgeable about the condition. I am on medication (Tysabri in case you wondered), trying to manage my remaining symptoms with diet (a huge topic in itself), and exercise. I am not where I was before my symptoms started (I still can’t run after my daughter), but I am better than before I started treatment, and I now know being diagnosed with MS doesn’t mean I will end up in a wheelchair. I don’t work in hospital pharmacy or as a locum anymore, but I still work (not in a patient-centered role but I still use my knowledge). I believe it has made me a better Pharmacist because I have lived through some of the battles we may all be fighting and I know it gets better. I also know that fear comes from the unknown, and the more we talk about these battles, the less scary they are, as we know we aren’t facing them alone. |