A woman was brutally dismissed by doctors from a young age when she sought help for symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS), only to get diagnosed seven years later. Now, at the age of 41, Noelle Connolly lives a full life and happily raises her three children while exercising daily, showing MS and others living with the condition what is what.
Noelle was only 17 when she had her first fall during a rehearsal for a school play. "I was playing Marian The Librarian at 'The Music Man', and a kid accidentally knocked me off stage," she told TheMirror.com.
"At first, you don't think anything of it. I went back to rehearsal but that night I started having 'pins and needles' in my feet and then slowly, over the next few weeks, they started moving up to my legs and up to above my knees. So I went to see a neurologist."
But the male doctor, and others who followed over the next seven years, profanely disregarded her symptoms. "He told my mum, while I was right there next to her, 'She is either just a very overdramatic blond teenage girl wanting attention... or she has multiple sclerosis'."
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Noelle is a brave mum-of-three (Contributed)
Fighting fit in the gym (Contributed)Despite suspecting the condition, the doctor thought his first impression was more likely and refused to refer Noelle for further medical tests to determine what was causing her symptoms, leaving her in agony with his nonchalant attitude. Sadly, he was not the only one.
Noelle said: "Moving forward I ran into a bunch of other doctors who were just like that. Over the next six years, I would go to doctors and say 'My feet feel like they're on fire, I have bad fatigue,' and they dismissed it telling me, 'Just live with it'. I would get really sick to the point that I couldn't walk to the bathroom."
Even after Noelle took the tests that determined her condition, doctors still treated her with disbelief. She shared another encounter with a physician: "I was 23-years-old, sitting in this man's office. It was my first time visiting this doctor. On my paperwork, I wrote that I was diagnosed with MS. He looked at me and said, 'How do you know you have MS?' I said, 'Because my MRI and spinal tap say so..."
She went on: "All he saw was a pretty face, a young vibrant woman. And he didn't take into consideration listening to the symptoms and he was not believing what I wrote on the paperwork, even after I had the correct diagnosis to back that."
According to Noelle, despite the testing showing she had MS, doctors were hesitant to officially diagnose her and didn't want her to medicate because they "didn't want [her] to start injections at such a young age," even though research indicates the importance of treating the disease early. "Even with the MRI and spinal tap results, it took a year for a doctor to diagnose me with MS," she said.
Asked if doctors would have treated her differently if she was a male patient, she says: "I do have a lot of friends who have MS, who had their first relapses young and they were diagnosed right away."
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She wants doctors to take the patient's feelings into consideration (Contributed)
She's ready to take life on (Contributed)Driven by these experiences, Noelle went on to become a social worker, hoping to provide patients with more compassionate care than she had encountered. And by working as a care provider, she saw that such behaviour is very common.
"It is rare to see doctors taking the symptoms and the patient's feelings into consideration," she said. "Doctors can be trained one way and it's hard for them to go off the path to listen to what the patient is saying. It's okay to say you're not happy with the care you receive. [...] It took me years to find doctors who actually listen to me and help me."
Despite all, Noelle says she isn't taken aback by what her life would have been like had she been diagnosed from the start. "We will never know what [would have happened] if... And I don't want to live in that. I'm happy and strong, living an amazing life with my three children. Is it difficult? Absolutely. I've had so many ups and downs. But the one thing it has brought to me is a life of understanding and wanting to help others."
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The mum of three is standing strong on her feet, greatly assisted by an electrical muscular stimulation device that improves mobility. She does boxing in an MS & Parkinson’s class and even takes her children on bike rides with her electric tricycle.
"My kids now call me 'Speedy' because I was always so slow and now, thanks to [the device], I got a little pop in my step," she shared adorably. "All my friends and family are a massive support system to me. I'm really lucky."
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