November 25, 2022 Columns by John Connor The World Cup of Football ā or Is It Soccer? ā Offers an Escape From MS In the five years I’ve been tapping away at this multiple sclerosis (MS) column for MS News Today, Iāve so far written during one FIFA World Cup. My oft used trope is that “itās football, not soccer,” for our many U.S. readers. That is, at least, how…
November 18, 2022 Columns by John Connor The Catch-22 of Dealing With Medical Bureaucracy First off, let me apologize for my penchant for using hip literary references. Not everyone is aware of Joseph Heller’s seminal satirical novel published in 1961, which spawned the book’s title of “Catch-22” as a quick-fire phrase to describe anything that is nearly impossible to get out of. Our…
November 11, 2022 Columns by John Connor Someone in My Family Has Medical Problems, and It Aināt Me You get used to ā¦ Hold on there, matey boy. Be honest and write “I.” This column has a reputation for brutal honesty (I’m sure someone has referred to it that way over the past five years), so donāt get all coy now that youāre not the center of medical…
November 4, 2022 Columns by John Connor I’m Taking This Medication Side Effect With a Grain of Salt The call from my urologistās office came far later than I was expecting, in regards to my long-term chronic urinary tract infection (UTI). The call came in on my home phone, but luckily, someone else was around to answer it. I long ago gave up trying to answer that…
October 28, 2022 Columns by John Connor Do You Want the Good News or the Bad News? Ah, one of the classic setups for a Christmas cracker joke. Others include, “Why did the chicken cross the road?” and “How many ____ does it take to change a lightbulb?” While these gags are popular in Britain, I’m not sure if they exist in the rest of the English-speaking…
October 21, 2022 Columns by John Connor A Childish Adult With MS Looks Back on His Life and Has Questions “You married a husband and ended up with a child,” quipped I. It was first thing Sunday morning, and I was addressing my wife of 30 years, Jane. She stood with blue, latex, hypoallergenic gloves on her hands, ready to deal with my sopping wet pad. More on that…
October 14, 2022 Columns by John Connor As Ever, I Prevaricate Before Taking On My Focus: Long COVID-19 Ah, after living the majority of the last three years of my life indoors, I do tend to spark conversation with my carers. But if I keep quiet, they’re more than happy to do so, too, as they repetitively deal with the rigmarole of getting me ready every morning. It’s…
October 7, 2022 Columns by John Connor No Surprise Here: Reflections and Ruminations on Living With MS There are moments in life that have surprising effects on us. I’ve had two. The first was when I was about 9, and my mother informed me that my headmaster had been told I’d disappeared after school. Fair enough in hindsight. I presume sheād phoned the police as well, but…
September 30, 2022 Columns by John Connor How Did I End Up in a ’60s Cold War Spy Thriller? The constant light in my cell burned through my eyelids all night. Every night for days now. Prostrate on my back, I couldn’t even turn over to get away from it. Why me? I knew nothing. Wasnāt part of any organization. Had no power. Couldnāt influence anyone. How did I…
September 23, 2022 Columns by John Connor The Smog of Tax Returns: An MS Fairy Tale Once upon a time, children, there was a very grumpy bear who kept a low-level, incessant growl going all day. And often, well into the night, too. If his family were lucky, this would only last about a week, but usually it would last a lot longer. He was snappy…
September 16, 2022 Columns by John Connor All Quiet on the MS Front ā Well, Nearly Note: The second half of this column details digestive symptoms that may make readers uncomfortable.Ā In the five years that Iāve written this “irreverent journey with multiple sclerosis (MS),” quoting from my very own bio at the foot of this column, I think Iāve only covered this “quiet”…
September 9, 2022 Columns by John Connor A Reminiscence About Our Glorious ā and Hot ā Summer It was a glorious summer for those of us lucky enough not to be engulfed by forest fires, face crop destruction by severe drought, or have to manage the debilitating effects of multiple sclerosis (MS), which are exacerbated by crippling heat. Over 60% of people with MS say…
September 2, 2022 Columns by John Connor Thanks to MS Progression, My Weight Became a Problem My weight went off the scale when my multiple sclerosis (MS) meant that I could no longer safely get on the scale. This was probably about four years ago. In them there halcyon days (for me, anyway), I still shared our second-floor bedroom (first-floor, for those of us here…
August 26, 2022 Columns by John Connor Column Saved by the Same Olā Side Effect to an Antibiotic This headline is a bit of a cheat. OK, itās a big cheat. When youāve been writing a column for five years, thereās immense satisfaction when youāve finished it each week. Thereās even more when itās passed through the editing process. Sometimes this can get somewhat tricky. The trouble is…
August 19, 2022 Columns by John Connor MS and Sex: Everything You Wanted to Know but Were Never Told to Ask Now, I know the phrase “Iām going to do my own research” has become a catch-all for conspiracy theorists who are out to prove spurious nonsense, merely by finding even more spurious websites they can whirl down like Alice falling through that there looking glass. Proper research costs serious money…
August 12, 2022 Columns by John Connor Seeing Double, and Iām Not Even Drunk! I only had my glasses for two years, yet reading anything on my phone was now nigh impossible. Still, it did cure my Facebook and Twitter addiction. Yer, yer, Iām old. (Iām 64, you know.) Sure, Iāve written this before ā surely thatās a free pass for us aged folk.
August 5, 2022 Columns by John Connor Pesky Leukocytes Dash My Hopes of Joining a Trial of Mavenclad for MS In December 2019, I was stopped in my tracks, or rather wheels, as I was about to have my third infusion of Ocrevus (ocrelizumab), the multiple sclerosis disease-modifying therapy (DMT) that Iād been taking every six months for the past year. My neurologist had decided just a few…
July 29, 2022 Columns by John Connor What I Didnāt Do on My Forced Summer Holiday Due to the UK Heat Wave No, it wasnāt my good wife, Jane, suddenly insisting we just had to take a break. Spontaneity is no longer a question for me. We can only go somewhere that has both a hoist and a profiling bed. Never mind a Molift and a shower chair. Itās…
July 8, 2022 Columns by John Connor Living With MS: ‘That Was the Week That Was’ Truly Awful Monday Unlike Prince, my Monday wasnāt manic. It was barreling along quite sedately until my wife, Jane, casually noted, “Remember, youāve got a dental appointment on Wednesday morning.” Er, no, I hadnāt remembered. It was somewhat churlish of me, as Iād been waiting for this appointment for nigh on…
June 24, 2022 Columns by John Connor Fall Down, Can’t Get Up Again So Iām at my multiple sclerosis (MS) exercise class working out on a sit-down bike. Yes, I know, by their very nature bikes tend to be of the sit-down variety, but for us lot in wheelchairs, these bikes are designed so we can roll up to them and have…
June 17, 2022 Columns by John Connor Five Years of Writing This Column. What a Surprise Compared with living with multiple sclerosis (MS), the anxiety of what on water (Earth has always struck me as a misnomer as water comprises 71% of our planetās surface) I’m going to write about next week is but a slight fluttering. Yer, yer, I know; underneath itās…
June 10, 2022 Columns by John Connor My Right Arm Is Going to Look Really Young I’ve just received four intramuscular Botox injections in my right arm to relieve the muscle spasticity that comes with multiple sclerosis. (OK, it wasnāt actually Botox, but Dysport, or abobotulinumtoxinA, another medication derived from the botulinum toxin to block muscle contractions.) And “my right arm is going…
June 3, 2022 Columns by John Connor Romance Means We Took the Weekend Off MS, Nearly There is a more heavyweight subject I could inflict on you lot, but letās put our feet up this week. Even I can do it with the one leg. My wife, Jane, and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary last Friday. Youād have thought weād have planned a big…
May 27, 2022 Columns by John Connor How I Get Through My Days ā More Importantly, Please Tell Me How You Get Through Yours Todayās youth have to accumulate a range of skills. Everything changes so fast. Parents often have no idea what career their kids even want to follow. Do you know what a UX designer is? Me, neither. This latest social change was revealed to me in a recent Guardian article,…
May 20, 2022 Columns by John Connor Get Stirring ā You Never Know What Kind of Soup Youāll Make In my cooking days, I always had a stock simmering away. Nothing was wasted. What had been frugality spurred on by self-imposed poverty ā first as a student, then in the struggling life of a garret writer ā later became the general political point of not wasting resources. It hurts…
May 13, 2022 Columns by John Connor No Crisis, No Column? OK, Fine: Everything Takes So Long With MS This weekās been a relief. I havenāt had to dash to casualty or fallen over in my chair. Nor have I stirred up a ruckus with the health powers that be or bumped into a fellow MSer with an interesting tale. My knockabout personality undoubtedly has…
May 6, 2022 Columns by John Connor A Conundrum of Low Blood Sodium Causes My Latest Health Scare “Well, this an idea for your next column, John,” my wife, Jane, said, a tad sardonically. At least I thought it was probably sardonic, as there was just a wisp of a razor-thin smirk glimmering at the corners of her eyes. This was because she was wearing a face…
April 29, 2022 Columns by John Connor The MSer Who Lay in Bed for 2 Years and Can Now Walk Again My column’s handle is “Fall Down, Get Up Again” because the first piece I wrote for Multiple Sclerosis News Today was titled “A Mountain to Climb with MS ā in My Living Room.” That column got me this gig five years ago. It was set in 2012, mind you,…
April 22, 2022 Columns by John Connor The Tricks of Intermittent Catheterization When Youāre in a Wheelchair For the few of you lot lucky enough not to know about intermittent catheterization, itās shoving a thin bit of plastic up the old (in my case) urethra so that you can pee. I am well aware of how bad plastic is for the planet, but in my open-and-shut…
April 15, 2022 Columns by John Connor A Winning Belt Turns Into WrestleMania It was a moment of clarity. Unfortunately, my attempt at making a bright, clear consommĆ© has for the moment turned into a muddled chowder! Even worse, it was writing this column that started it. Iāve written so often in this column about using my Molift assistive device for transfers…