Despite dealing with symptoms for years, Katie found the disease relatively manageable until she had a bad flare-up this Summer. Left with painful sensations and numbness in her legs, it became extremely hard for Katie to walk.
"It was like I had rubber bands attached to my legs that were pulling from behind as I was trying to walk forward," she said. "If you've ever tried to run in the shallow end of a pool, you feel the same resistance. The harder you run, the slower you go, to the point where you can't go anywhere at all."
The flare-up made doing everyday parenting tasks a much larger feat for Katie. And while she was able to take care of her sons — Ryan, 13, and Jeff, 10 — her mobility was becoming more of a challenge.
"Tasks like grocery shopping became very difficult. Just walking from the car in the parking lot to the door was an effort," she said, adding that, "I had to get a cart and hold onto it. It took me a long time. I was walking slow. I wanted to sit down. My flare-up caused my symptoms to really impact my day-to-day life for the first time."
Even cleaning her house was a task that needed to be planned out days in advance with built-in time for rest. "I used to be able to clean my house from top to bottom — vacuum, dust, mop, scrub, everything — and get it done in the day," she said. "Now, if I can't do all of it in one day, I physically can't get it done because it's too taxing. And on days that I'm doing a lot of it, I usually have to rest for the following day or two."
Image Source: Katie Merrick