Part 3: The source of my joy

Hello Friends!! It's me again!

This time I'm writing you with a few answers to what has been going on with my vision. But more than just answers, I'm writing with great joy! While I still haven't seen a complete improvement in my sight, my doctor said last week that he believes I will see much more improvement over the next 6 months. I'm sure some of you are asking this question: Why so much joy if there is still such a long time to wait? I can't really explain why other than that God has been so close to me during this time and I'm completely content (right now) with just that.

So here are the details of my visit with the neurologist last week: I got a chance to look at my MRI which did show 2 white cell legions on my brain. The doctor explained that these legions are more than 2 months old and are no longer active. This is good news. He also explained that I may never have even noticed when those first two legions happened. He asked if I had ever noticed any other sort of odd things such as tingling in my hands that would go away after a couple days or numbness below the waits. Since I haven't had any of these things, he concluded that I have experiences a Clinically Isolated Syndrome (CIS) of Optic Neuritis. This where the patient will have a one time occurence and might never experience it again. Then the doctor started to inform me about a couple studies that have been done on patients with Optic Neuritis and CIS. This is what he said:

Patients with Optic Neuritis w/ No legions on their brain were tracked over 10 years and 38% developed MS.
Patients with Optic Neuritis w/ 1 legion on their brain were tracked over 10 years and 56% developed MS.
Patients with a CIS were tracked over 14 years and 85% developed MS.

Now I know these statistics are not encouraging at all. But what the doctor did say is that he would like to see me in at least 6 months for another MRI to see if there are any more legions. He also mentioned that I have the option of taking MS drugs as a type of preventative action but I've decided against it since they can be up to $14k a year. I will continue to work with him as I move forward and keep having him monitor how things are developing.

But what is the real message I cling to and the true source of my joy? God is so much bigger than these statistics. And I don't need to worry about 10-14 years from now. If I do, I will miss all the blessing for today and I would hate miss out on those. My joy rests in the fact that God is truly in control and I won't need to worry about a thing.

Thanks again for all your prayers!