I thought I was immortal

What was it with me that I thought I was immortal? I had to really look at my life's view; and it turned out I had Peter pan complex. I always took good care of myself, did my yearly check-ups and ate well. I did smoke - I quit 2 years before my diagnosis. That was my one weakness - ciggys. Then I just quit thinking I smoked for forty years so I should not smoke for the next forty years. I really thought I had it together. Turns out, even I could get a disease.
I always worried and obsessed about my health. I always had this looming feeling that I would end up with something painful, even though I was dealing with MS all my life. As I got older, my brain was unable to compensate and I began to have symptoms in a vacuum.

At 26, my right side went numb. The doctor thought it was stress because I was planning a wedding. I got a second opinion and the second doctor said I had MS, but if I  allowed him to officially diagnose me, I would never get insurance and, more importantly, they had no cure nor did they know much about it. So I left the office with Prozac and the numbness left after a month, and I never experienced it like that until 2008.

The blindness in my right eye in 2003 was diagnosed as a migraine. While I do get severe migraines and have since high school, what I went into the emergency room for was not a migraine, it was optic neuritis.
I was never able to read maps, and as I got older, I was unable to listen attentively and became scattered and was unable to focus.  I began to lose jobs as it looked as if I was not listening on purpose and I got into power struggles with my superiors; something I never had a problem with until I turned 30.

I just rationalized that it was time to get a degree. So at 35 I went to college at an online school to study management, which was the career I was in. I figured if I got a degree in it, I would get better pay and jobs. Unfortunately, I changed careers and  degrees before I could get a better job in that field and I maxed out at 40k a year, but that story will come later.

I can say all of this easily, but it was a long hard road. I worked 12-18 hour shifts and went to school full time. my grades were average, and I wanted them to be better, but I lived in Seattle, the Capitol Hill District, and it was super expensive. I also had and brand new sports car I had to pay for. I was strapped to the car, the downtown apartment and my credit card payments.

I lived in Seattle for 5 years - from 2000 to 2005. The day I left there for Maui was one of the best days of my life. Seattle was dark, wet, cold and there were 3 suicides a year in my apartment complex. I would walk everywhere and see "cleanup vans" and yellow tape; and that smell. Anyway, I got out of there fast.

Before I left I found that I was having bad pain between my shoulder blades. It came and went. I also got numb feet and hands. I never thought anything about it. Just like I never thought twice about the blindness in my right eye; it was diagnosed as a migraine and went away after a few days.

All of the misdiagnoses, the inability to put together these symptoms together, coupled with the brushing off of all of them by myself and doctors made me feel like I was invincible and immortal. The chapter that opened in my life when I left Maui and moved to Denver in 2006 changed that forever.