WOWT in Omaha, Nebraska About one million people suffer from multiple sclerosis, or M.S. The illness targets your nervous system, and each person may experience different symptoms.
Kellien Anderson began experiencing lightheadedness and dizziness in September 2023. She was sent home after a doctor at the time diagnosed and treated her symptoms as vertigo. Soon after, she started to experience facial numbness.
When I woke up the following morning, everything was upside down. “It was double vision, two of everything,” Kellien said. “I didn’t know what was going on, so I had to crawl on my hands and knees.”
She went back to sleep after thinking it was a bad dream, but her symptoms persisted, so she returned to the hospital.
In fact, the doctor was going to send me home. My life was saved by a nurse who admitted me after saying, “No, I think there is really.” Kellien recalled this.
Following a second opinion, Kelly was taken from her Jefferson, Iowa, local hospital to a facility in Des Moines. There, it was discovered that she had a brain tumor and had experienced a stroke, which would not be the last.
“I kept having these episodes, so I went back and forth to rehab several times,” Kellien said. “So they take me to the hospital by ambulance and tell me that you had a second stroke after the MRI.”
Kellien would experience four separate strokes between rehab and the hospital stays, for which there was no known cause. After a week or so, doctors in Des Moines were unable to treat her but hypothesized that M.S. may have caused her condition. For additional testing, Kellien was therefore sent to Omaha, Nebraska.
Doctors at the time informed Kellien that she did not have MS, and the growth on her brain started. She needed to have a difficult talk with her kids because she had no answers and a growing spot.
“I had to talk to my kids about what I wanted for a funeral,” Kellien said. Although I didn’t want to do it, I was unaware of the situation at the time.
Following additional testing in Omaha, Kellien visited the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where medical professionals discovered 20 lesions on her brain that were brought on by M.S.
Kellien visited four rebab centers and six hospitals between September and December of 2023. Two days before Christmas, she received a formal diagnosis of relapsing remitting MS in Minnesota.
“It’s like when you have an electrical cord with a plastic covering on top, the myelin sheath is exposed and the bugs or whatever eat through that plastic piece,” Kellien said. In essence, her brain’s nerves were gnawed through and left bare.
In February 2024, Kellien began receiving infusion treatment for her illness. She worked for the state of Iowa as a case manager until her illness forced her to retire.
She was confined to a wheelchair and had to regain her ability to walk and speak. She claims that going through early rehab was challenging.
“I had to wear earplugs because I couldn’t stand noise, and I had to wear sunglasses because I couldn’t stand light,” Kellien said. “It was really challenging because I constantly had migraines as a result of my mind having panic attacks.”
Kellien would get better with time. She resumed driving and walking, albeit with some restrictions. She claims that her friends’ and family’s encouragement keeps her going.
A full year after her diagnosis, Kellien would go ice skating with her friend David Burton, another M.S. survivor, at Riverfront Park in December. She claims it’s something she never imagined would occur again.
She remarked, “It was an amazing sensation; I felt like I was floating.” I felt like I was on top of the world and was pumped. Thus, it was quite cool.
Kellien continues to receive treatment for her type of MS today, traveling back and forth between Iowa and Nebraska for additional infusions every six months. She will continue to live with M.S. for the remainder of her life, but she will not allow it to slow her down.
Although there isn’t a cure for the illness at this time, early treatment can help it get better or slow down.