![\"\"](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/addy-and-Dr.-Imitola-225x300.jpeg\")
Martinez is a patient of Jaime Imitola, chief of Division of Multiple Sclerosis and Neuroimmunology and director of the UConn Health comprehensive MS center, nationally recognized by the MS society, \u00a0and she is also an employee at UConn Health who works as a clinical office assistant in the Nephrology Department.<\/p>\n
\u201cI adore Dr. Imitola, he is a great listener and very proactive and very reassuring,\u201d says Martinez. \u201cHe\u2019s always very positive and it\u2019s like a breath of fresh air when I see him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Martinez also has a lot of support from friends and family and her colleagues at UConn Health are amazing, but it\u2019s her colleagues who think she is amazing, coming to work daily no matter how she feels and giving her best to all the patients.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe comes into work every day and works so hard even when she is not feeling well,\u201d says Lizneirie Rodriguez, clinical office assistant in Pulmonary at UConn Health.\u00a0 \u201cShe goes above and beyond for her patients.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Martinez, it\u2019s the patients she works with every day that give her perspective and courage. Many have diagnoses and struggles that she feels are worse than hers. They give her strength, and they don\u2019t even realize it.<\/p>\n
Martinez feels that she is an advocate for the patients in the clinic, she makes sure when she notices a patient missed their appointment that she immediately calls to check on them and reschedule.\u00a0 So even though she may not be feeling well, sometimes it could be numbness in her hands or memory loss that comes and goes she keeps pushing through because she knows that there are people that need her here. It feels amazing when somebody tells her how much they appreciate her and that her extra efforts made them feel better.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt makes me happy to help our patients and while I\u2019m fighting through all these symptoms I just keep trying to focus on the positive and on what I’m doing, how I’m changing people’s lives even if it’s in such a small way,\u201d says Martinez.<\/p>\n
Martinez has infusions every six months to help with the MS symptoms.\u00a0 At a certain point in her journey, she felt like she was becoming weak, and her legs were getting heavy which was scary she thought that she would end up in a wheelchair, but the infusions have made it so that she feels better and doesn\u2019t experience the leg issues any longer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will say that fatigue is one of my worst culprits. Some days I have all the energy in the world and then some days I feel like I just can’t get through,\u201d says Martinez.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore I was diagnosed, I was not even aware of the disease and what it does to people,\u201d says Martinez. \u201cIt\u2019s considered an invisible illness, so people think you look fine on the outside they don\u2019t know what you are going through.\u201d<\/p>\n