In an interview today with HipHopDX, Masta Ace revealed that he has been in a long battle with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), "a chronic disease that attacks the central nervous system, which is made up of the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves." The Brooklyn rapper was diagnosed with the disease in 2000 after suffering symptoms such as loss of vision or the sensation that parts of his body had fallen asleep (like the "pins and needles" one gets when lying on a body part for too long) even though he was standing up.
Ace tells HipHopDX, that he didn't put everything together, but knew something was wrong: "I knew something was going on, but I didn't know what. You start thinking the worst kind of stuff 'cause it's weird, like, 'What the hell is going on?' I didn't know that the two things were connected, but I just knew that weird stuff was happening and I needed to find out why."
Following his concerns that something was wrong, Ace went to the doctor, who ran multiple tests, including a spinal tap, and the diagnosis came back as Multiple Sclerosis. After he received the diagnosis, Ace says he didn't want to tell anyone, because he didn't want any pity: "I wasn't really ready for people to be hitting me with the, 'Ah, that's terrible... I didn't want anybody to feel sorry for me. I wasn't feeling sorry for myself. I didn't want the pity. I didn't want any of that. I basically took it as a setback and a sign that it was time to reenergize and just really, really go in."
Source: HipHopDX
