Jack Osbourne, son of Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne, recently announced that he has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS).
While I guess there is no time to be diagnosed with an illness like this, this seemed to come at a particularly bad time.
Osbourne, like his sister Kelly, had struggled with addiction. But, he cleaned up his act, lost a lot of weight, and recently became a father. His fiancee, Lisa Stelly gave birth to the couple’s daughter Pearl Clementine on April 24th. Osbourne told PEOPLE, “I was just angry and frustrated and kept thinking, ‘Why now? I’ve got a family and that’s what’s supposed to be the most important thing.” The couple was planning their wedding, but that may have to take a back seat while Osbourne comes to terms with this recent diagnosis.
MS is an inflammatory disease that affects the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord). Those afflicted with MS may have trouble with muscle control, pain, vision, balance, swallowing, feeling, speaking, strength, and thinking.
How did Osbourne find out he had MS? He was having trouble with his vision. He said that one day he woke up with a dot and the dot kept expanding until he only had peripheral vision out of his right eye. After the diagnosis, Osbourne remembered a period two years ago when he lost the feeling in one of his legs for a few months. Thinking it was just a pinched nerve, he now thinks it might have been his first MS episode.
What is his prognosis? The disease affects about 400,000 Americans and because its cause is unknown and there is no cure, it’s hard to say. The disease may progress over the next 10 to 20 years and Osbourne is going take injections of Copaxone to try to keep it at bay. He plans to supplement that with vitamins and hormone replacement therapy.
His mom and fiancee think Osbourne may have the most important thing to help him through all of this – a positive outlook for the future.