September 22, 2023 Columns by John Connor A quiet MS week that’s just too darned loud to think Big breath, for my travails below necessitate a catch-up on my story so far. For once, my multiple sclerosis and the myriad joyous comorbidities it’s conferred on me — trigeminal neuralgia, lymphedema, diplopia, spasticity —…
September 8, 2023 Columns by John Connor You’ve got a Napoleon complex, you have, mate I don’t have a Napoleon complex in the sense of being small. My body still spans 6 feet, though that’s only when I’m lying down; I doubt I get anywhere near 5 feet tall while seated in my wheelchair.
September 1, 2023 Columns by John Connor Yet another urinary tract infection causes a complete change of plans What follows is something of an emergency column. All of yesterday’s writing had to be scrapped. I’m now down at the bottom of Column Mountain, squinting up through the clouds and mist, trying to work out again what’s the…
August 25, 2023 Columns by John Connor The itch that turned into an outbreak of yet another comorbidity It’s a new week, so it’s time for a new comorbidity. Not content with affecting my brain, spine, and bodily functions, secondary progressive multiple sclerosis is now making my body break down at a cellular level. Make something…
August 18, 2023 Columns by John Connor Oh, how far we’ve come since the ‘Victorian Era’ of treating MS In 2010, I strolled into a new hospital to meet my new neurologist. In them there far-off days, I was indeed strolling — nay, striding — but it wouldn’t last. I was surrounded by an aura of self-confidence that…
August 11, 2023 Columns by John Connor What I should’ve been told about clinically isolated syndrome and MS In 2007, at age 47, I had my first-ever consultation with a neurologist. It was during my longest-ever hospital stay, as of then — a whopping eight days. It amazed me that some of my fellow patients in the…
August 4, 2023 Columns by John Connor MS comorbidities make me a stranger in a strange body I was never a hypochondriac until multiple sclerosis (MS) whacked me. A catastrophic fall while playing tennis in 2007 resulted in a shoulder separation that took two operations to fix. The pain was so bad that, at the…
July 28, 2023 Columns by John Connor What started as a simple problem turned into a complex kerfuffle Long ago, I acquired a pair of speakers for my laptop. In fact, they’ve survived many, many iterations of the things. Laptops become outdated quickly, their inbuilt fans fail, or, as in my latest version, the installed RAM is…
July 21, 2023 Columns by John Connor Reflections from the front line, take 2: If only all hospitals were like this As last week’s column ended, I’d just negotiated with my ambulance driver and paramedics to take me to any London hospital other than the one where I’d spent the Christmas months. They offered me St George’s Hospital,…
July 14, 2023 Columns by John Connor Reflections from the front line, take 2: Back into the fray There was no column from me last week, and here follows the reason why: “In the wee small hours,” as Frank Sinatra so eloquently crooned, I, too, was abruptly awake. Only I hadn’t drunk my way…
June 30, 2023 Columns by John Connor I get no kick from champagne — but what a kick I get from steroids It’s only day one, but my eyesight has already improved. It may not be that of a hawk’s, but at least I can tell the difference between a lumbering pigeon and a bird of prey. The world seems brighter…
June 23, 2023 Columns by John Connor There’s more to life than this (expletive) MS, and other stories Nobody’s life is eternal, but let’s face it, peeps: Much of the psyche of a multiple sclerosis (MS) patient is internalized. I spend an inordinate amount of time, physical and mental, on my illness. Yer, OK, I’m not…
June 16, 2023 Columns by John Connor I can’t make my own bed or even lie in it! For most of the past six years, I’ve been suffering from that weekly journo disease known as “columnitis.” One column is finished, hurrah! Bathe in the relief of getting that one in the net. (It’s a football reference, American…
June 9, 2023 Columns by John Connor Weighing the costs and benefits of care for my aggressive MS It’s not often that I dig into my somewhat sketchy knowledge from the Bachelor of Arts in economics I earned in 1980. Admittedly, it should really be described as ugly. Although I scrapped nearly one-third of my units of…
June 2, 2023 Columns by John Connor Up at 9, in bed by 8, yet still no time? My sleep schedule, according to mathematics, leaves me 11 hours — so what’s my problem? My current ultra-efficient carers arrive at 9:30 a.m. and usually get me into the wet room 15 minutes later. Maybe 20 if my bottom…
May 26, 2023 Columns by John Connor I keep running into trouble even though I’m in a wheelchair Ah yes, I’m starting this week’s column with a headline that’s a conundrum (that is, if the ol’ editor lets me keep it). That’s because I’m starting with a slang word. I’ve checked, and it seems that the main…
May 19, 2023 Columns by John Connor Global warming and the fine art of ambulance chasing Who’d have thought of the following shenanigans? It only took four days of constant badgering to fix. Last summer brought exceptional (actually, likely to be semi-regular from now on) hot weather in the U.K., with parts of England…
May 12, 2023 Columns by John Connor Reflections from the front line: Home for 3 weeks and still sorting papers So I’m back home. Four months’ worth of bureaucracy lay in front of me. In truth, quite a wodge had grown before I went into the hospital. Hey, I hadn’t been well in the months leading up to…
May 5, 2023 Columns by John Connor Reflections from the front line: My recovery from muscle deconditioning I’m worried that my tales of recovery may have gotten a tad boring, so let me liven things up with the weirdest thing I now have to live with. The head of my “thing” has been sliced half an…
