In 2002 I’d moved to the U.S. and had married Dona, as far as the health scares I’d had I wanted to forget them and just get on with life.
Living near Denver, Colorado was great, an incredibly beautiful state. It took a while to get accustomed to living at altitude, Denver is known as the “mile high” city, the local monthly is called 5280 which refers to its height above sea level. I’d been working for ADT in the newly formed Fire Systems Group which required me to take special training for the required NICET qualification in order to recommend , design and sell the appropriate systems, it was all very interesting and enabled me to travel throughout the state and see more of the beautiful Rocky mountains.
After a couple of years with ADT, I was offered a really good job at Toolwatch, an organization specialising in RFID technology and working for a Canadian sales director, Dan Long was a tough guy in all aspects of life. A great boss who was an even tougher hockey player, fortunately I never got on the wrong side of Dan and he taught me a lot. One of the accounts I inherited after Dan left was New York City, Parks and Recreation. My first visit to NY was for a trade show in Queens, N.Y. I had to set up my booth and demonstrate the software to all comers. During a hot day I started to get worried as I was feeling unusually weak and still had a few hours and a lot of talking to do. At the end of the business day I was invited out for drinks with Mike from NYC Parks and Rec. Now Mike Zeno was an Italian New Yorker and wouldn’t have looked out of place on The Sopranos, “capiche”, nuff said.
After a few drinks, I think it was a few anyway, I got a cab (black car) back to my hotel, at that time I wasn’t exactly sure what was causing my problems, I hadn’t drunk that much but I was feeling similar to how I had when I had my problems a couple of years back. The next day was different, although I felt a little better, I was still weak but had several appointments to make that day including a trip to Brooklyn to see NYC Transportation. I managed ok and told everyone that I must have eaten something that didn’t agree with me, so in my own way I “Winged it” and still won a new contract.
It was the weekend when I arrived home from my trip so luckily had a couple of days rest, I dismissed the problems and put it down to too much drink, travel and excitement. Nothing further happened as far as my health was concerned and I was doing really well in my job, working in America is very different than here in england, I didn’t get anything like the standard holiday time and I worked the east coast so I was in the office at 6.0 am till 4.0pm. Everything was harder, more demanding but the pay was fantastic. We sold our house but the new one was going to be built and it would be six months before we could move in so we stayed with our good friends Dick and Susan.
About 3 months prior to moving in I’d got up at 4.30 as normal but collapsed in the bathroom. After resting for a few hours I saw my doctor who was concerned obviously but couldn’t say exactly what it was so arranged for me to into hospital.
During a three day stay I had a variety of tests that included an MRI, Cat scan, E.E.G. ultrasound and a lumbar puncture plus a couple of blood tests. On the third day the neurologist I’d seen came into my room and actually sat on the bed which I thought a little strange. He looked at me in a different way than previously, he tilted his head to one side then said he had bad news and there was no way of breaking this gently, then said you have MS. He went on to explain exactly what multiple sclerosis was, I looked at him like it was no big deal and told him I’d deal with it. This is when he said that there were drugs that could help, I told him categorically that I wouldn’t be taking the drugs. He looked at me like I was a petulant schoolboy and said if I didn’t take the medication then I would be in a wheelchair permanently in 6 months.
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