Reply To: Still healing after nearly 3 years?

Hello, I am mostly a lurker because I don’t feel worthy to post here. I feel bad to talk about my success when so many have it so much worse. I had rapid onset GBS in 2005, and that is when I joined this forum. I was in respiratory distress when the doctors told me “there is nothing we can do for you, you will likely never walk again”.  I didn’t respond well to that, I literally fell out of bed trying to get to my feet. I was determined that if I never was going to walk again, I was going to fight like hell until I couldn’t.  It was  a very long time like many of you here can attest to before I began to see glimmers of normalcy. So, as an update, here is where I am today, nearly seven years later. I have no reflexes in my legs below my knees, I have little feeling in my calves and even less in my feet.  I wear work boots most of the time because I find that I can walk better and there is less pain in my feet after. I put this out of my mind as much as possible, if I don’t think about it, I am fine. When I wear slippers around that house I have to walk really slow, going up or down stairs I am prone to trip. My shins have many scars to show the number of fails.  Many don’t talk about the mental side, I am mostly ok, but I know I am not the same person I was, I don’t feel the same inside, I am more timid now then I ever was before, and I have difficulty at time remember how to spell a simple word, or thinking of a word or name. I have some swiss cheese memories as well.  But for me the worst thing is that I have a partially paralyzed esophagus so I have to eat and drink slowly.

I am here today because my work told me that I “must get a flu shot to continue working here” and it scares the hell out of me.  I have never had one, but I was told after GBS to never get one. Anyway, I hope more then you know that you all recover completely. Just know, what you believe, you can achieve.

Linc