Author Archives: John Connor

Move along, move along. Nothing to read here. What a great start to a column! Last week, my worries about MS lifted as I was consumed by a glitch in my computer software. I’m pleased to report that I’ve found a whole series of admittedly fiddly workarounds. I’m even…

The vagaries of multiple sclerosis are always present, but this week, my waking hours have been consumed by something far more important. I say waking hours, but we have to discount much of that time, because I’m put to bed at the early hour of 10 p.m. and spend several…

I’m pretty sure that wherever you are, you’re responding the same as we all are to the ravages of the latest Bond villain, that dastardly omicron variant of the coronavirus! OK, pipe down, Kiwis. The whole world knows the extreme lengths you’ve gone to avoid a massive COVID-19 outbreak. If…

This is the fifth year I’m writing a Christmastime missive about how my MS journey as Santa is going since the disease mortally attacked my immune system. The trouble was that it took doctors ages to work out my diagnosis. Being Santa Claus, no MRI machine…

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while. My wife, Jane, who’s also my primary MS carer, went away for a few days last week, and with absence making the heart grow fonder and all that, I thought I’d strike — if she came back! Fortunately, she did,…

Well, there’s a new carer at home, actually, but town sounds so much cooler. Like an old-time Western sheriff! My dear wife, Jane, has taken a few days off to attend an ayurvedic yoga retreat, so I’m without the care of She Who Really Must Be Obeyed. (I’ve…

So, where was I last week? I was in the midst of writing this column when I was felled overnight by my long-term nemesis: a urinary tract infection (UTI). As usual, I had no idea I had one — but hey, I was ill. I’m sure I’ve banged on…

I have to admit, I’ve wheeled down the THC path a few times before. Yes, I know it’s very difficult to stay on the path when under the influence. Luckily, I’ve solved this problem by only imbibing in bed. I say imbibing, because for me, smoking the stuff is…

Well, that was fun. I’ve got my party hat on from a recent birthday (of course I have one, it’s my trusty trilby! See my avatar above) and have been out and about having a lot of fun. I splurged by spending time with family and friends, ’cause…

It was my birthday last Friday. No cards, please; it’s far too late. Anyway, considering the world’s supply chain disruption, I’d be well on the way to my next by the time it arrived! Just a small social gathering of immediate family. Six of us demolished 150 quids’ —…

My wife, Jane, woke me up at 9 a.m., announcing, “Welcome to Groundhog Day!” Every day starts the same. Yes, I know the day always started at 6 a.m. in the film, but even 9 a.m. is a terrific shock to my system. Never in my life have I…

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light,” Dylan Thomas wrote in his famous poem about us humans fighting, against all odds, the inevitable moment of death. Oh, yes, I went there. I’m starting with the dark and seeing if I can pull it back with a swath of…

I was tryin’ to find lots of things to do while being trapped at my desk because of a wheelchair mishap. Apologies for my adaption of Bing Crosby’s rendition of that happy-go-lucky song “Busy Doing Nothing.” I was trapped because at 8 p.m. last Friday night, the wire that…

I know that here in England, COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted for about two months. But trepidation has now been instilled in me. It doesn’t help that the vast number of people catching the virus are still a daily news item, nearly two years after the start of the…

So, yes, I’ve been away for four weeks. Anybody miss me? Well not away as such. There are places with hoists — even a specialist camper van you can hire here in the United Kingdom — but matching that with a profiling bed makes for quite the elusive Venn…

I have always liked the odd horror movie, the odder the better. I was a bit of a fan of the trash Troma Studio mob, where their tongue was so firmly in their cheek it usually stuck right through it. For you youngsters out there, think the “Sharknado”…

It’s all happening at once. Yesterday, a box turned up with my new lymphedema wraps, which use compression to help reverse my lymphedema symptoms. I’ve been waiting for the wraps for nearly a month. It turns out I’m such an unusual size that they had to be imported from…

I’ve written about trigeminal neuralgia (TN), which entails severe facial pain, many times. Let me count the ways. Please excuse me while I go off and search through my columns. I’ll be a while. Well, it turns out I’ve written specifically about it only three times,…

Any British comedy aficionados among you will know “He’s fallen in the water” is the most famous of all the innumerable catchphrases of “The Goon Show.” That show was the root of Monty Python and every bit of the new wave of comedy that swept through our country.

Last month, my brother-in-law finally managed to return to Thailand and his lovely wife. He’d been trapped in the U.K. for over a year due to COVID-19. Thailand has quite rightly imposed a Kafkaesque set of rules about entering the country on an extended immigrant visa. Luckily, we had…

Last year, winter never quite arrived, and spring kept springing up before being crushed down again. We imperceptibly melded into summer. Then the autumn leaves hung on, and hung on some more. But these days, would Mr. Sinatra have to get his lyricist to do a rewrite? Some of…

Right, I actually have to start writing my column early this week because of the football schedule. For you Americans, that’s soccer, y’all. The biggest, most popular game in the world! The UEFA European Football Championship, or the Euros, is on. It’s the 2020 competition, but it’s being held…

Many of you will remember doing jankers (detention) in school. Well, those of you who easily identified with “The Breakfast Club” will. If you never did one, let me educate you! A teacher’s favorite devilish ruse was telling us to write about being in an enclosed white space.

Many years ago I thrust myself into the Edinburgh International Festival. For the many who have never heard of it: It’s the largest arts festival in the world, encompassing theater, mime, dance, comedy, film, books, and sometimes even a splash of opera. For some reason I even sat through…

There was a time when I’d regularly strap on two pads, stride out between English showers, and attempt to bat on the subsequently dodgy surface. That was good for the fast bowlers, except they now found themselves also slipping on the sopping grass. I sympathized with them, as I was…

Screaming. The pain from this trigeminal neuralgia (TN) attack was worse than any previous attack. And there have been aplenty. I couldn’t function! But boy could I scream. It was 8 a.m. and I was stirring awake. My tongue merely touched one of the bottom molars on the…

Well, this was a first. I’d fallen backward once in my power wheelchair. That was in the back of our mobility van. Hubris told me I could get away with just holding on to the handgrip for a few hundred meters. As ever, hubris was wrong! About six months…

For any younger readers, and by that I’m guessing 45 and under, may I present the cartoon character Popeye the Sailor Man. He got himself out of scrapes by downing a can of spinach, which supercharged his muscles. There was none of that nonsense of de-stalking raw young leaves…

After last week’s column about my neurologist declaring that I now have secondary progressive MS, a certain ennui has seeped into me. While this isn’t surprising, it’s also surprising, because I’m on the mood-altering drug fluoxetine. OK, fluoxetine is a regular antidepressant, but “mood-altering” sounds so much cooler.

Isn’t it just like me to start my column with a physics analogy that is already confusing? Please stick with me, as all will be revealed. My point is that if a black hole is big enough, you might slip through its event horizon without even noticing. There would…