... About living with MS for 40 years.

I was 14 years old when I hurried off the tennis court and found my mother. I complained that I was seeing two tennis balls coming at me and my mother just looked perplexed. "But you can see that there is only one tennis ball." I shook my head in something of a panic and said, "I know, but I'm seeing two." And sometimes, when I looked up to serve the tennis ball in the evenings there would appear to be two sets of stadium lights.

I started playing tennis when I was 11 years old and thought that I would play the game all of my life. I grew up in Orlando, Florida, where the tennis was great. But all during my junior competitive years, weird things kept occurring. One time when I looked at the lawn around the courts, the blades of grass looked painted together almost as if they were on an artist's canvas. It wasn't just my vision. Frequently when I would retrieve the ball to my right, my knee would just give out.

I seemed to do very well playing tennis in cooler weather during my undergraduate years at Frostburg State University. A lot cooler. Sometimes the team even played when there were snow flurries. It never bothered me. But indoors when we had to do our workouts in the gymnasium, I fatigued very quickly.

I fell in love during my sophomore year in college. I graduated early, and earned a master's degree at Ball State University before marrying in 1973. I was anxious to get back to tennis and I competed in a few national tennis tournaments.

My husband was an officer in the Marine Corps. We were stationed in Camp Pendleton, California, where there was wonderful tennis weather. I continued to play and didn't seem to have many of the crazy things or weird sensations any more. I would just get so tired doing the simplest things. Fatigue would come over me for no reason. I knew something was wrong.

By 1977, my foot was dropping every time I tried to take a step with my right leg. I would trip going up steps. I kept getting weaker until August of that year, when I barely got to a hospital emergency room before I collapsed. After a series of tests, I was diagnosed with MS.

I don't believe that anyone thought I could have something like MS because I was so healthy and such a good tennis player. Matters became more complicated. My husband filed for divorce. I knew that whatever the future held I had to get back on my feet and get going again. I had to do it on my own. I was lucky to finish my doctorate.

By my early 40s things changed again. I had been hired in a tenure-track position back at Frostburg. But my students kept evaluating me as an alcoholic at the end of the semester. One student wrote that I was constantly holding onto the blackboard and it was clear that I had a hangover when I was in class. Finally, I told everyone I had MS.

These days I am the senior full professor in the Department of Mass Communication at Frostburg State University. I use an electric scooter. My reputation is widely known. A student in the back of the classroom raised his hand during an examination to ask a question. While I walked to the student with ease, as I came back up the aisle I lost my balance. If you have ever started to fall, you know that you start to grab anything you can. In this case my hand went out in midair, but found its way under the top of the desk and into a student's groin. It was a male student who played football and the entire class during this quiet exam listened to the universal male call: "UGGGGGHHHH!" But everyone understood.

I started taking a disease-modifying drug as soon as they were available and I hope that, if nothing else, my condition is on hold. One thing is for sure in my present career: no male students ever sit in the front row!

Tyra C. Phipps, EdD, is the senior professor in the Department of Mass Communication at Frostburg State University. She can be reached at [e-mail].