A Letter to Multiple Sclerosis

A letter to Multiple Sclerosis

A letter to Multiple Sclerosis

A Letter to Multiple Sclerosis

You first visited me a long time ago. It was 1972, I was 18 and having a pint or two of beer. I went to the loo for a pee but nothing happened. In 1979 I had a serious bladder spasm and I wet myself at work. You went away only to return very occasionally but we had not been introduced. My quality of life was good but one day when I was very tired I had double vision.

The diagnosis

My GP referred me to a consultant. The consultant told me I had MS. You had been rumbled, it was 1994 and I was 40. You had left your calling card but the consultant didn’t tell me anything about you.

In those days I was so ignorant.

Occasionally MS was a problem

Sometimes you could make my vision go a bit wonky, the grass was a different shade of green depending which eye I looked through. When I wanted a pee then sometimes I had to move fast. You were beginning to affect my life.

In 2000 you changed

Now I could not walk far over uneven ground. The dog walks became more of an effort, the problem was my left foot.

MS was becoming a real nuisance

It was in 2004 I realized I could not run across the road or go upstairs two at a time. Now you were really affecting my life; I could no longer pretend the MS was a mild irritant.

No one told me how you would affect me as you grew up. Now you were no longer a teenager. You stopped me from driving; you stopped me walking very far. I used walking poles to help my balance and make walking easier. The Wife had to take on more and more of the jobs I used to do. She is a real hero and just gets on with things.

You took away so much of my independence?

You made sure my life became more and more of a struggle. Your effect on me was growing year on year. I can look back and see when you stopped me doing things that I enjoyed.  By 2010 it was obvious that I was not the man I used to be. Eventually I had to take medical retirement.

But…

You have given me new opportunities. I help universities as a service user. Aid4disabled.com is the biggest one, it is my therapy.

Leave me alone

I do not know how much more you will do to me and my family. I cannot imagine life without you but I do wish that you would stop making my body so dysfunctional.

Stop destroying my life.

2 responses to “A Letter to Multiple Sclerosis”

  1. Mateja says:

    Dear Patrick, thank you very much for such a wonderful blog. Really appreciate it. Since I found it, I am really fond of it. Good luck. Mateja (from Slovenia)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.