Dr. Tornatore has been
my neurologist for 18 years and he has encouraged me
every step of the way and everything that I have wanted to do,
continuing to be active,
continuing riding, exercising,
and also my mental wellness
with the philosophy of movement as medicine.
When I was 17,
I started this journey of having ums.
My lips had gone numb.
And I thought it was a reaction to some chapstick or a lip product of some kind.
And I didn't really think anything of it until that numbness and tingling started
moving up the left side of my face and down my neck.
My pediatrician sent me for an MRI with the results of the MRI.
We went to Georgetown to see Doctor Tornatore for the first time,
and that MRI showed seven lesions on my spine
and three on my brain with kind of a classic presentation of MMS.
At the
time, it just kind of was all a little bit surreal.
I was an active horseback rider.
I don't think I really believed it at first.
Dr. Territory was incredibly reassuring through the whole thing.
We talked about the different drugs that were on the market,
the best drugs for my age and the best drugs for the way
my arms was presenting and what that was going to look like.
Multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory
disease of the brain and spinal cord,
and it tends to affect young people initially
like Veronica, in their teenage years or their twenties or thirties.
And as such, this is a lifelong disease.
So I've been doing this now for almost 35 years,
and I have patients that have grown older together.
And so because there is that
relationship, there's a therapeutic bond there.
But it's extremely important because you're going to see people
through different stages of their life.
He has
encouraged me every step of the way and helped me
make therapy decisions to continue to be able to do all of those things.
As we've kind of had stumbling blocks, I've had problems with vision,
I've had problems with fatigue.
I started to suffer from something called foot
drop, where you can't do the dorsiflexion to keep the foot up.
He's helped me figure out what we can do in terms of treating the PMS
and then branching out and talking to the physical therapists and talking
to desire trips and and my support system through the whole thing.
And the horses are so important.
Tornatore believes that I was actually able to keep my arms
managed because of the horses.
And then when I wanted to have my own family, he was incredibly supportive
and we talked about the risks because there are risks,
but he also talked about kind of what was possible
and that if that's what we want to do, then we're going to make that happen.
So being active is
extremely important in the care of someone with M.S.
You know, we like to think that our M.S.
medications, you know, help to treat the disease, which they do.
But I always say that's maybe only 50% of the treatment.
The other 50% really comes down to staying active, eating right,
getting good sleep, and really just taking good care of yourself.
I'm a para athletes, so I competing or sage,
which is dressage for individuals with disabilities.
It gives me goals.
It keeps me emotionally invested.
It keeps me physically strong. The hypnotherapy,
the movement of the horses, the core strength, all of that helps.
Managing the mobility aspects
of my disease. Yep.
I have days where M.S.
is hard and M.S is painful, and I don't want to go do infusions.
That doesn't get me anywhere.
But I have treatment options and I just always choose to look at the sunny side.
And so
for me, there's very few times where you can't find
any silver lining.