By Casey Neill
Rania Melhem says “the unknown” is the scariest thing about multiple sclerosis.
“The best that I can hope for is I can continue to keep walking,” she said.
But the Dandenong North 28-year-old is remarkably positive about living with the central nervous system disease.
“The diagnosis has been so challenging, but it has made my life so much better because I appreciate it so much more,” she said.
“MS takes you to such dark places that it makes you realise that little things in life don’t really matter.”
Ms Melhem was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) at age 19 – six years after her older sister.
“I started fainting at uni and just generally not feeling well,” she said.
Doctors put it down to her history with migraines, but then the right side of her face went numb.
“Mum was not convinced it was just migraines,” she said.
She got an MRI and then the diagnosis that would change her life.
The impact on her family was her first thought.
“They took my sister’s diagnosis hard,” she said.
“I didn’t really even take it in in terms of worrying about myself until I started needing to inject myself.
“That’s when it really hit me that I was unwell and something’s really changed and I’m not in control any more.
“I was so ambitious, I’d started uni, I was so excited about my job.
“All of a sudden I was in a doctor’s office being taught how to inject myself three times a week.”
Ms Melhem hid her pain. She endured injections for three years before a pill treatment became available.
It made her hair fall out and caused other health problems, but at least she was rid of the injections.
“I pushed through the first six months and then it was really good for a good five years,” she said.
But it stopped working, and at the start of this year she turned to infusions in hospital.
“It basically kills your B-cells so when they regenerate, hopefully they forget to attack your nervous system,” she said.
Her body took it hard.
“I got blisters on my hands and in my scalp,” she said.
“My blood pressure kept dropping really low so I had no energy.
“Touch wood, I feel like I’m getting back on track and I’m feeling a little better.”
There is no cure for MS, only medication to help manage symptoms and slow the disease’s progression.
Symptoms for the 23,000 people living with MS around Australia vary from a progressive decline over time to unpredictable periods of relapse and remission.
Ms Melhem lost feeling in her left leg during her last relapse.
She drops things constantly because she can’t feel her left arm properly and suffers daily nerve pain.
Multiple Sclerosis Limited came into her life two years ago and organised in-home personal training to keep her limbs moving, set up a home office and teed up occupational therapist visits.
“Having the third party to talk to – that’s not your family – really helps,” she said.
“Sometimes you don’t tell your family everything because you don’t want to worry them or scare them.”
Support like this, and MS Limited’s research for a cure, wouldn’t be possible without fund-raisers like the MS Dream Home Lottery.
Ms Melhem is the ambassador for the competition, which has a $4.2 million prize pool and a one in 15 chance to win.
She holds her own fund-raisers, too, and writes a blog under the moniker Miss AnonyMS.
Ms Melhem said MS slowed her down but she’d still finished uni – “I won the Monash prize for the highest-scoring student” – got married and landed a job in communications.
“It sounds stupid but I really follow the whole YOLO – you only live once and you just never know what’s going to happen,” she said.
“Don’t sweat the small stuff, be grateful for the little things that you do have.
“I really appreciate the little things now, like walking.”
Lottery tickets are available from msdreamhomelottery.com.au or 1300 311 816 until 19 July.
