I've read so much stuff on the internet I can't remember what I read and what I haven't. My pain started in October 2019 and I just figured it would go away at some point. It became severe by summer of 2020 and I had to take an ambulance ride to a hospital where the Doctor ran a bunch of tests and told me I had some form of Peripheral Neuropathy and referred me to a specialist. The day before I was to see the specialist I got laid off (I was a Principal Engineer at Western Digital)... so that took my insurance away. And again I had no idea how serious the condition was so I just kept on trying to exercise and ride my motorcycle and thought it would heal at some point. I used to race Superbikes when I was in my 20's so riding is essential to my happiness. So that's primarily what I've done for exercise but it was becoming increasingly difficult. My speech is also affected and I sound like an idiot when I try to speak a lot of the time. Circling back, the pains were not constant and I was getting by ok through 2021 and then in spring of 2022 it started getting worse and worse. My balance was way off and walking became incredibly difficult. I had ordered a new bike to try to return to the racetrack and the night that it showed up I realized I couldn't feel my feet when I was trying to get it into the garage. I managed to get to the bed and figured I'd be ok and get up and ride it in the morning. When morning came I couldn't feel my legs and when I tried to get out of bed to walk to the bathroom it was like I was a newborn calf. I couldn't walk at all. I dragged myself to the bathroom with my arms and then went to the hospital. They ran everything they could think of and admitted me. Within a couple of days I found out this was serious and maybe permanent. One of the Doctors started telling me how other people lived in a wheelchair just fine and I was just freaking out and ejected him from my hospital room. After I got out of there I was indeed in a wheelchair numb from the chest down and at home with no solid answers. Didn't take but a few weeks before I was overcome by the pain and had to call an ambulance. When the ambulance arrived my vitals were so high they were afraid I was going to have a stroke so we went rather quickly to a different hospital. They had access to all the records from the previous stay and went and got a Neurosurgeon. This was the beginning of actually getting some help. This guy told me my MRI showed some sections of degenerative disc disease and that he could do surgery and address that, but that I wasn't complaining of the pain usually associated with that so before he did that it was more important to get to Neurology and figure out what was going on, as well as pain and spine department to try to manage the pain level. Long story longer, when the Neurologist did that thing where they electrocute you and measure the time and amplitude, as well as inserting the needles into my leg muscles and checking for muscle loss. His notes are filled with lovely phrases like "severe nature of his findings" and his assessment of Severe Axonal Neuropathy and Peripheral Neuropathy at least gave me a name for what I've been going through, Since then it's been tons of oral meds and epidural pain injections. I just had 6 epidural corticosteroids Feb 16th. That's after doing the same thing December 27th. I was actually supposed to get the Feb injections in January but my insurance didn't approve it by the scheduled date so I got bumped and the next appointment was Feb 16th. Anyway this is like the 4th time for that procedure since October 2022. I setup a gofundme which I'm not proud of but I don't think I fit the demographic for that to gain traction so what's probably about to happen is they're going to ask me for the pre-payment which they always do and when I tell them I can't pay it they're going to cancel the appointment. The corticosteroids are right in the window where they're supposed to reach their maximum effectiveness and so I'm going through that roller coaster of psychological and physical distress. As I type all this I'm off and on crying it hurts so much and the situation is beyond overwhelming.