My Weird and Downright Bizarre Symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis

In addition to great volatility of mood, I have also had my share of bizarre cognitive symptoms.  What I am about to tell you sounds like it could be written straight from an Oliver Sachs book about odd people and their strange neurological symptoms.  I have always been a bit of an outlier but my MS is ensuring my position in the outer realm of data points.  I would welcome any researcher to study me and my MSy brain.  I am sure there is enough there to fuel several studies at least. 

Maybe you have heard of the TV show, "Numbers."  An FBI agent and his mathematical genius brother combine mathematics and police work to help solve crimes.  This show highlights a fascination or one could say an obsession with numbers.  I have never understood such an obsession and I have never been fond of either mathematics or numbers.  Until several months ago, that is. 

My MS episodes of symptoms usually are preceded by a feeling of dizziness, or a sick feeling in my gut, or some sort of visual disturbance.  When I feel these "auras" coming on I know that anything, and I mean anything can soon follow.  I am used to the gait issues, the feeling of being off balance, tremors, and all the oh so wonderful impairments of movement.  What I never anticipated was that at certain times I would develop a great fascination for numbers.  Take a moment and examine your surroundings.  Numbers are all around you.  They are on your computer, on your clock radio, on the call numbers of your library book, and glowing from your see in the dark remote control.  If you are out and about they are on signs, on the speedometer of your car, and on the zillions of license plates whizzing by.  And I have had more than several MS episodes where I cannot get the numbers out of my mind. 

It is like my mind is super focused on retaining the sequences and order of numbers.  And when they all bombard me at once, it is a great euphoric explosion of information.  During these "number" times I feel downright excited over numbers.  Imagine the scene of going to a coffee shop with a friend.  My mind cannot escape the numbers on the cash register.  I remember each item rung up.  I am a human register tape.  And what's more I simply must repeat the numerical sequences I see.

"Chai tea $3.36

"One blueberry muffin $1.96

And so on.  And not being the mathematical genius type, I simply parrot the incoming information.  As I repeat the total of our coffee house expenditures I smile.  My friend who is no stranger to neurological disorders, having three children with epilepsy, looks at me most curiously.

"What is it that you are doing there?" she asks cautiously.

"Just repeating numbers.  It is one of my new MS things."

"Ooooh I see," she says without really seeing at all.