Ann Romney was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998 after she started experiencing numbness and extreme fatigue, the Boston Herald reported in 2002. “I was like, ‘Would someone please give me a different diagnosis?’ because I didn’t know how I was going to live with this,” she said. Mitt Romney didn’t take the news much better, describing it as the “worst day of his life,” according to Y Magazine.
MS, an auto-immune disorder that affects the central nervous system, causes a wide range of symptoms and Ann’s symptoms were severe. “It’s like a gray cloud that invaded every cell of my body. It was in the brain. It was in my muscles. It was in my organs. I had no ability to almost do anything,” she said. “I felt I was being eaten away,” she told The Wall Street Journal. In her pain, Ann said she wished she had something more serious that would be more definitive. “There were many times when I sort of wished I had cancer and would just die,” she told The New York Times in 2012.
And she actually did have another medical issue, though she obviously didn’t die. In 2008, Ann was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a lumpectomy to remove the tumor, The Hill reported. Her health journey has been no walk in the park, but Ann said it’s taught her valuable lessons. “[It made me] more human, more understanding of others going through their own sorrows,” she said on America’s Radio News.
