Posted by: The Sumaira Foundation in NMO, ON, Patient.e, TM, Voices of NMO
My name is Mitchel Navarro. I’m 34 years old, a wife, and a proud momma to two beautiful children – a girl and a boy. I have a bachelors degree in elementary education and was a teacher when this journey began. My days would begin at 5 AM and I’d finally be able to crawl […]
Read MorePosted by: The Sumaira Foundation in NMO, ON, Patient.e, TM, Voices of NMO
Sunday 15 December 2013, on a friend’s farm in the beautiful little town of Dullstroom in Mpumalanga South Africa, started as blissfully peaceful as it sounds. This was to change from around noon that day when I started experiencing severe headaches and bouts of dizziness. I initially thought it was hay fever or something like […]
Read MorePosted by: The Sumaira Foundation in NMO, ON, Patient.e, TM, Voices of NMO
I can trace my first NMO symptoms back to when I was just 12 years old… I’d be walking down a flight of stairs and for a split second, it was as if a switch had been thrown, cutting off communication between my brain and my legs and I’d fall down the stairs. Sometimes I’d […]
Read MorePosted by: The Sumaira Foundation in NMO, ON, Patient.e, Voices of NMO
Five years ago, my oldest daughter and I were grocery shopping when it occurred to me that the grocery store looked foggy or smokey. When I asked her if she thought it looked the same, she gave me a “you’ve lost your mind” look. By the next day, my vision was gone in the left […]
Read MorePosted by: The Sumaira Foundation in NMO, ON, Patient.e, Voices of NMO
It was December 2019. I struggled almost every day with tension headaches (eyes and nose). My primary care doctor suspected I had migraines and prescribed me with migraine medication. I don’t like taking medication (never have) and stopped taking the pills after two days. I chose to fight the headaches… On Christmas Eve, I noticed […]
Read MorePosted by: The Sumaira Foundation in NMO, ON, Patient.e, Voices of NMO
It was March 2009. I was 39 years old. One morning, I woke up feeling significant pressure behind my left eye. I felt it mostly in the right corner of my eye, but assumed it would go away as quickly as it came. After a day or two, I thought it could be a sinus […]
Read MorePosted by: The Sumaira Foundation in NMO, Patient.e, TM, Voices of NMO
I was 33 years old in 1993, when I experienced a sudden attack of optic neuritis, an inflammation that damages the optic nerve causing vision loss. A small black dot, obstructing the vision in my left eye turned into complete blindness in that eye in a matter of days. While admitted to Upstate University Hospital […]
Read MorePosted by: The Sumaira Foundation in NMO, ON, Patient.e, Voices of NMO
Life before NMO – I was an active mom, worked as a home health nurse case manager and an avid marathon/half marathon runner… Before work, I would wake up at 4:30 am most mornings and meet my running buddies for a six mile run. On Saturday’s, we would do our long runs which were 13-21 […]
Read MorePosted by: The Sumaira Foundation in NMO, Patient.e, Voices of NMO
My name is Sherry. My experience with my disease is a little different and backwards… I was taking care of my father who had MS for many years and experienced sporadic health issues but never at the same time. I began to notice that these issues were becoming increasingly worse, with more signs and symptoms […]
Read MorePosted by: The Sumaira Foundation in MOG, Patient.e, Voices of NMO
Now that I have been diagnosed with Myelin Oligodendrocyte Glycoprotein Antibody-Associated disease, or MOG-Ab disease, I have met others who are afflicted and have listened to their stories. They all start similarly, with an acute attack, out of the blue, and always marking the start of an unexpected turn in health. My story is different. […]
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