https://youtu.be/OUV3751nbGI
I remember it like it was yesterday. It was May 2005. My wife just woke me up because she was going to work. She was a school counselor and she would leave a lot earlier than I did. So she would wake me up before she left to say goodbye. I had to get up. I was a real estate developer working in Boston at the time, and I had to get up and get ready and start my day.
Plus I really had to use the bathroom. So I, as I tried to sit up in bed and swing my legs over and put my feet on the ground, I noticed that my legs are really heavy. And as my feet touched the ground, we have tile floor and tile is usually cold in the morning. But I couldn't feel the cold. Not only that I had these pins and needles in my, my feet.
Like I had slept on them wrong, but that had happened before it usually resolves in a minute or two. So I kinda pushed myself up out of bed. And as I did, I noticed that my legs were numb all the way up. I'd never had anything like that happen before. So I'd had like pins and needles in my feet, but never all the way up in my legs, let alone both legs and both feet.
So I was like, this is interesting. And I started thinking, I went to the gym the night before, so maybe I had pinched a nerve in my back or something. But I still really had to go to the bathroom. And even though it was interesting nature calls, so I tried to walk, but it was like I was stuck in glue. I couldn't move at all.
So I would have to push myself off the wall and then kind of waddle and push from wall to wall to get down the hall to the bathroom. And when I got to the bathroom, the plumbing wasn't working. And I don't mean the toilet. As soon as I realized that I couldn't go to the bathroom on my own. I knew that there was something seriously wrong and I needed to seek medical attention.
The problem was that my wife was already at work and being a school counselor. It's very hard to reach her during the day. So I knew I was going to have to get to my primary care physician on my own. And so even though I could barely walk and I couldn't feel my feet, I did what a big dumb guy would do.
And I got myself down to my truck. I pulled myself up into it and I use my legs to press down on the gas. And I got over to my primary care office. It was 2005. They didn't have Uber at the time. So I, I did the best I could with what I got and all of a sudden, I'm in my physician's office and it was a new physician.
I had never seen this guy before. And he had a kind of a nervous mannerism to him. And I could tell right away that he had never seen something like this before. Here I am. I'm thinking it's a pinched nerve. But he would say things like Matt, wait right there. I going to make a phone call and he'd leave the room and come back and do some tests, then he'd be like, I need to go make another phone call.
You go, come back, make another test. And each time he was like, just nervous with his mannerisms. One of the times he even did that. A one-finger white glove test. I didn't think I would get until I was like in my fifties. And then he left again. He finally comes back. And at this point I'm scared. I'm like, I don't understand why he's coming and going.
I don't understand why he's nervous. And he's like, Matt, I need you to see a neurologist. And I'm in real estate development at the time. So I knew that neurology was the study of the brain, but I had no idea how my brain was connected to my numb feet and legs. So I got myself home. And it wasn't safe. I wish I had never done that, but I did.
And when I got home, I pulled myself up into the house and onto a couch and I called the neurologist number that he gave me and the scheduler was like, we don't have an appointment for three months. And I'm like, whoa, I can't walk. I can't go to the bathroom. My PCP said I need to get in there right away.
And she's like, well, if you're having symptoms, we can fill you in on Monday. Now,
