The rest of my life started without warning bells or flags. I simply went to bed one night utterly shattered. But so what? I had three children aged six, four and two - exhaustion came with the territory. The difference was, I felt the same after 12 hours in bed.

At first I assumed I was getting a bug but nothing materialised - no temperature, no flu symptoms, just utter, overwhelming fatigue and, a few days later, a numbness and weakness in my right arm and hand.

My husband's concern accelerated mine; he's a medic and not easy to alarm, so I started to imagine the worst. Was this it? I was only 37. Bloods tests were arranged. I wasn't anaemic and there were no signs of infection. I had no other symptoms at all. I trawled through all our medical books and typed "fatigue" into a search engine. Could it be lupus? Could it be chronic fatigue or ME?

I studied the list of symptoms, half convinced, half wondering if I had ME. I found the thought embarrassing. I was sure no one would accept my symptoms unless I presented them with a nice conventional label - but the only thing that seemed to fit was multiple sclerosis. I added "numbness" to the search, and MS websites came up again and again. I learned that parasthesia was the medical term. It didn't enter my head that I should be praying for ME because there was nothing nice about MS.

By the time I saw a physician at the hospital, I was slowly improving. He made it clear that he wasn't impressed with my symptoms, but did arrange an MRI scan. Two weeks later I got a letter telling me that the scan was clear, effectively dismissing me. I was mortified that I had wasted their time. The fatigue went, the numbness faded and life went back to normal.

But out of nowhere, about two and a half years later, the symptoms returned. This time there was no question of flu or anything else - it was obviously a re-run of whatever it had been before, and I was scared.

It started when I was out walking and I felt a dull ache in the back of my leg. We finished the walk and collected the children from school, but when I started making supper my legs suddenly became incredibly weak. Even standing was too much. I went to bed sick with exhaustion and fear.

The next morning, after 15 hours in bed, I could summon just enough energy to get the children to school.

I came home and sat at my desk, revisiting my search of the net. Two hours later I was exhausted and had to lie down. Negotiating my way to the stairs I kept bumping into things. My inbuilt radar had gone and I had to consciously navigate. The parasthesia was now down the whole left side of my body.

The next morning, I saw my GP and tried to explain the symptoms. I felt embarrassed about how weak and feeble I was, so I made a joke of it. I told her I felt drunk, and I had to concentrate on walking so I didn't bump into anything. She laughed with me and obviously didn't understand, but she took lots of bottles of blood.

The results revealed that lupus could be crossed off my list. A few weeks later the fatigue had lessened, though my face was now feeling slightly numb, like an injection hadn't quite worn off.

I became a self-taught expert in neurology, visiting every website I could find. Demylination, lesions and sclerosis were added to my everyday vocabulary. Time rolled on and the symptoms were still there, sometimes the fatigue but always the numbness. I was fast-tracked and got an urgent appointment with a neurologist.

He agreed that MS was a strong possibility then told me about a benign form and said my presentation looked encouraging. Did it? Well I hadn't lost my sight and I was still walking. I left his office so uplifted that I was euphoric. But that soon faded and I was left with a cold feeling of fear. How could this be benign? I was no longer an able-bodied person so surely by definition I was disabled.

Another MRI scan was arranged, my neurologist expected to see some lesions, and, bizarrely, I hoped we were not disappointed. I desperately needed to understand what was happening to my body, and I was more afraid of the unknown. MS was, by then, familiar territory.

December 17 was my D-day. The neurologist showed me a picture of my brain; he explained that the MRI had revealed peri-ventricular lesions. It pointed to MS.

So I got my diagnosis, my respectable label. I was spared the embarrassment of ME but I have no greater insight into what the future holds. The prognosis ranges from virtually normal to severely disabled and guess what? There's no way of knowing which way the knife will fall. There is no cure for MS, there are only disease-modifying treatments and symptom control. But even the path towards treatment is not clearly defined, the nature of the disease is episodic and my neurologist thinks I will feel better very soon. This episode will end and the symptoms may not return for years. Is it worth going through the trauma of daily injections; the drugs are strong - steroid and chemotherapy drugs - if I'm not going to have any further episodes? That seems reasonable, logical even, so we have decided to play a waiting game.

But I now have a new symptom - sometimes my feet feel hot as if I am standing on a radiator, but hey, it is only just spring so maybe I have found my silver lining. I have returned to searching the net, this time for my cure, which can only be alternative. I now fully understand the cliche clutching at straws, but it is no longer a cliche, it is my life, and I am clutching big time at acupuncture, homeopathy - things I have never heard of before. I'm a great believer in the power of the mind - have I willed this on myself?

One day I decide to pretend everything is normal and so I do normal things and I act like a normal person but by lunchtime I can no longer control my legs properly, I go to bed sick with exhaustion. Have I accepted this diagnosis? I don't know. What does acceptance feel like? The thought of being in a wheelchair embarrasses me, but I also feel ashamed that I can be so shallow. My life has fast-forwarded to old age and I am angry, but still very grateful that I haven't got a terminal illness. I don't have to prepare my goodbyes, it's not a death sentence but I am in for life and it's not looking good. Sometimes by bedtime I can hardly stand, though other days I can walk a mile or more.

Deep down I don't accept the neurologist's optimism, I think that now is the best it will be for me. I have recently noticed that on occasion I slur some of my words. The loss of cognitive function is my greatest fear.

I don't think hope is good for me. Hope is only good if it is realised, otherwise it is cruel and it stops you from accepting what is real. I have to accept the worst-case scenario then I can get on with my life.

I talk to a friend who is a nurse, she has a patient with MS who uses a wheelchair. I want to know, is she happy? Is life good for her? The answer is yes, she has adjusted her life and she's fine. That reassures me more than anything I have heard. I reinvent myself; I am a happy, smiling person, I am busy, I have a life but I also have a wheelchair.

· Georgina Charles is a pseudonym