By Emily Gauthier as told to Amanda Keener, Special to Everyday Health

I never get sick. I think had the flu once in my life. But  in 2007, at age 40, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). It was a rough way to enter my forties.

I was diagnosed in the most bizarre way possible. I went to the doctor because my ear hurt so much I had trouble falling asleep, and I figured I must have had an ear infection. The doctor looked at my ear and said, “No, there’s no ear infection, but there’s some wax in there. Let’s have the nurse clean it out.” So she cleaned my ear — and ruptured my eardrum.

From there everything spiraled downhill. Over the next few days I started having pain in my jaw. The doctor thought I was crazy — how could my jaw hurt from my eardrum being ruptured?

The pain got progressively worse. Everything was on one side of my body. One of my eyes was droopy, and the numbness spread down my body — down my neck, down my arm. By the time it got down to my thigh, I was scared. Something was taking over my body, and I didn’t know what it was. I kept looking up “stroke” on the Internet.