Standing tall for skyfall: Michelle Hanley is not letting her MS diagnosis get in her way

When Michelle Hanley, a single parent of two young children was diagnosed with MS, it took her a while to deal with the news. Now she is determined not to let it get in her way. She tells her story to Helen O’Callaghan

Michelle Hanley thought it was a trapped nerve when she suddenly got pins and needles on the fingertips of her left hand three years ago.

The 27-year-old, (then 24-year-old) mum-of-two had just gone back to college to study hairdressing. “The heat was making the symptoms worse — the hair dryer, the hot water.”

With it being a constant and new symptom, North Cork-based Michelle went to her GP, who prescribed anti-inflammatories for five days and said come back if things didn’t improve.

Before the five days were up, Michelle got a new symptom. “If I bent my head, I’d get a light electric shock sensation across my lower back — like the sensation of walking backwards into an electric fencer on a farm and then jumping forward off it.”

Her GP referred her for MRI.

“I asked is there need for that. He said ‘yes, this could be something to do with your nervous system’. I thought he was being very dramatic. I didn’t feel it was anything serious at that point.” Then she woke one morning to find “it was as if I drew a line down the middle of me — my whole left side was completely numb and with pins and needles. It wasn’t painful — it just felt odd, weird”.

Thankfully, she could move, so she got her children to school, then rang her GP who said come straight in. “He said he’d got my MRI results and he had a very strong suspicion it was MS. I’d heard of MS but hadn’t a clue what it was. I felt numb. He was speaking to me and I wasn’t hearing him. It’s just a haze, even when I think about that time now. I thought MS was something that affected older people. I knew it was disabling but I didn’t know how.”

In fact, Multiple Sclerosis, meaning ‘many scars’, is the most common neurological disease of young adults and affects over 9,000 people in Ireland. It affects motor, sensory and cognitive functioning of the body and is usually diagnosed between age 20 and 40. Three times more women than men are diagnosed and there’s no known cause or cure.

At this stage, Michelle didn’t have an absolute MS diagnosis but because her newest symptom mimicked stroke symptoms, her GP sent her to A&E. In the hospital, the neurologist was 99% sure it was MS. A further test confirmed it fully. “She explained it was a disorder of the central nervous system. She compared the nerves to the flex on a kettle, how it’s like the black flex on the outside is wearing away, leaving the inside nerves susceptible to damage. You feel shocked when you get a diagnosis like MS. There’s always a part of you hoping it’s something less serious.”

As a single parent of two young children and suffering crippling headaches from a lumbar puncture she’d had as part of the diagnostic procedure, Michelle says the everyday task of getting out of bed and getting life back to normal for her children was momentous, particularly in the first weeks. “I wasn’t going out or meeting my friends. I was over-eating. I was putting on weight. The more I put on, the less self-confident I was, the more miserable. Any twitch or twinge, I was thinking what’s happening now.” Her parents were “a massive support” and one morning she “just sat up, put my feet on the floor and said enough of this”. That day she rang MS Ireland and within hours their regional support officer phoned Michelle. “That was the best phone call I ever had. She helped me come to terms with my diagnosis, to fully understand what it was. She taught me to love myself again. I can pick up the phone to her at any time.” She joined her local gym, going six times a week. “I don’t go as regularly now but I walk. I’d feel so empowered coming out of the gym. I’d think ‘my legs are sore because I made them sore — it’s not MS’.”

Michelle, who gave up hairdressing and works part-time in Centra, has relapsing-remitting MS. Today her main symptoms are pins and needles and fatigue, which she describes as “just an extremely different level of tiredness”.

With Abbey, aged 11, and Alex, aged five, she has been a “completely open book”, explaining that sometimes her body doesn’t allow her do what she wants to do. “I never tell my kids we’re doing anything until about an hour before we go. They think it’s great that they’re getting loads of surprises. In reality, it’s just me measuring up how I feel. For things like their sports days, I push myself through. If it’s on at 2pm, I’m sitting at home that morning doing nothing. I just have x amount of energy to do things.”

Kiss Goodbye to MS runs through May. The campaign is about awareness-raising, supporting research and fundraising for vital services that reduce impact of MS. Supporters are asked to ‘go red’ — to Wear, Dare and Share: to wear red or hold a ‘red day’, dare to get sponsored for MS Ireland skydive or Fire Walk, and share with friends/familyto spread the word. Text KISS to 50300 to donate €4 and nominate others to take part.Visit www.kissgoodbyetoms.ie MS Ireland will hold the first MS Research Ball on Saturday, May 26, as well as Red Lab Coat Day in research laboratories around the country, reinforcing the research message for Kiss Goodbye to MS.