Which is worse, contracting COVID-19 or having the MS relapse that will surely come after a severe case? As time passes in this pandemic, I have been less and less vigilant about, well, everything. Today, I have a close family member with COVID. Yikes! Now I’m researching my risk. Here’s what I found:
The National MS Society “COVID-19 risk for people with MS” article says just because I have MS does not mean I will have a bad case of COVID if I get it. My test was negative today. Risk factors for severe COVID cases for MSers are: “progressive MS, older age, male sex, black race, using a mobility device or wheelchair, obesity (body mass index of 30 or higher), diabetes or heart disease, and taking certain disease-modifying therapies” (DMT). Whew. I’m not in any of those categories.
I checked out the DMT list on the NMSS website (list) and the guidelines for which medications may affect the severity of MS when a patient has COVID. I’m on Tecfidera, so it says I should not have a different risk than the general population.
Alaska Bush Life
Did you know I have a separate weekly blog about living in remote Alaska? Every Thursday, I post a new story on my author’s website blog – www.MelissaCook.us/alaskabushlife. Many readers of my Alaska and multiple sclerosis memoir (Amazon affiliate) The Call of the Last Frontier said they did not want the book to end. To give my readers a little more, I began writing blog posts about Alaska Bush Life in September 2021 on my Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Linkedin. There is also an Alaska Bush Life Facebook page with all of my posts.
I am moving all these short stories to my author page with the “Now, for the rest of the story” section that will give a bit more personal detail about the post topic. So if you have read these posts before, check my page over the coming weeks to read the extra material.
We spent twenty years in remote Alaska. We lived an extraordinary life first in the Aleutians on the edge of the Bering Sea in a tiny Aleut village with no store and then in the remnants of the world’s largest logging camp on Prince of Wales Island in southeast Alaska. The Call of the Last Frontier has readers laughing, crying, and hanging on the edge of their seats. I went to Alaska for a job and found a twenty-year adventure.
Resources
National MS Society. “COVID-19 risk for people with MS.” https://www.nationalmssociety.org/coronavirus-covid-19-information (accessed July 11, 2022).
