"Likely MS" diagnosis (Daria's Post)

Hi all,
I am currently on my neuro placement in SCGH. Last week I treated a patient with "likely MS" diagnosis.

This patient presented at the beginning of last week with neurological symptoms such as altered sensation (R) face, double vision lasting for more than 1 hour, decreased hearing (R) with tinnitus, numbness (R) arm plus (R) leg. Everything started suddenly in November 2007 with loss of balance.
I found really hard to treat this very nice and cooperative patient and I had to constantly think about wards I am using and how I communicate with this particular patient. During the treatment I was trying not to use the words that would indicate that patient has definite MS even mentioned earlier neuro symptoms plus fatigue, depression, headaches seem to match MS very well.
The patient has asked one of her friends to find out on internet about MS, another friend who is nurse was helping in interpretation. The doctors were doing extra investigations to confirm/exclude MS diagnosis. I knew that it is very hard time for this patient like wanting for a sentence. On the one hand patient wanted to know as much as possible but on the other hand probably wanted to find out that doctors are wrong. To be honest I wanted to believe that it is not MS, too.
In addition, this patient (female) is only 4 years older than me. She has loving husband, beautiful daughter, good job and suddenly everything may have to change. At the end of week this patient sensation, balance have improved a lot, gait has become more stable but still slow on top of this patient finds balance exercises very tirying and has to concenetrate o lot.
To sum up, I think that treating patients with degenerative disease can be very rewarding but depressing,too

Daria