May 18, 2018 Columns by John Connor Chained to My Desk The tinkling laughter of tiny children filters through the windows of my bedroom. It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon. In years past, I would be sitting in the garden watching my grandnieces play. Undoubtedly with a large jug of…
May 11, 2018 Columns by John Connor Crawling to Deadline It’s 3:15 p.m. U.K. time on Wednesday, May 9, 2018. My deadline for this column is actually 3 p.m. Gone are the days of blaming the dog for eating my homework; it’s only in the last few minutes…
May 4, 2018 Columns by John Connor Knowing Me, Knowing MS The problem with writing a weekly column is I always need to come up with new ideas. Luckily, or rather, unluckily, MS always throws me a U.S. sports-shaped analogy — one of those trickily disguised curveballs. I wasn’t…
April 27, 2018 Columns by John Connor Tricks of the Trade I saw my neurologist a few weeks ago for what was effectively an emergency meeting. I’d had the customary two rounds of Lemtrada (alemtuzumab) and still had a relapse. We discussed weighty subjects and there seemed, surprisingly, to still…
April 20, 2018 Columns by John Connor It’s the Little Things Really big things are going on in the world. WW3 is again flagged as a possibility. My world is considerably smaller. It’s mostly my bedroom. I can get out of it, but it takes a considerable effort. In the…
April 13, 2018 Columns by John Connor Back to the World The stars sometimes align, even for us atheists. My son was making a fleeting weekend visit from his last year at his university. It’s all we were going to see of him over the Easter period. He’s taking…
April 6, 2018 Columns by John Connor Be My Wife Let me introduce you to my wife, Jane, by cheekily lifting the title “Be My Wife” from possibly the only accessible track off Bowie’s seminal ’70s album, “Low.” Through these weekly columns I’ve mentioned her often…
March 23, 2018 Columns by John Connor Keep Taking the Steroids! Six months ago, I was a reasonably svelte 14 and a half stone. I’m not sure how I managed it, but it was certainly before pitting edema wrapped itself around my shins and calves like bulbous sacks…
March 16, 2018 Columns by John Connor Into the Woods Well, I’m usually fairly upbeat, but this time, it’s going to be beyond me. We’ve all had relapses — I think I’m in the fitting cliché of being on my last legs. I can, on a good…
March 9, 2018 Columns by John Connor Out of the Woods? It’s been a grueling three weeks. Birds ate my breadcrumb trail long ago. I was too tired to follow it anyway. Stumbling about has definitely been beyond me! I’ve just shaved what had become a beard and showered, which,…
March 2, 2018 Columns by John Connor Going Cold Turkey Usually, I’ve got a fair idea of where I’m headed in my column. This time, I really don’t. I’m confronting something. Maybe nothing. It’s as clear as the cliché involving wet, clingy earth. For the first time since…
February 23, 2018 Columns by John Connor What’s Going On? Something is! I had to be carted off to the hospital in an ambulance on Thursday of last week. It was either an infection my home-visiting doctor couldn’t spot or the dreaded relapse. She couldn’t diagnose any illness.
February 16, 2018 Columns by John Connor Having a Swell Time The thing about becoming increasingly immobile is that your consumption of TV, radio, podcasts, books and, indeed, anything written goes up immeasurably. Luckily, one of the creative explosions in the recent years I’ve had MS is Scandi drama.
February 9, 2018 Columns by John Connor Do Supplements Add Up? It started with vitamin D. Little did I know I was starting a habit. I had my first sclerosis attack in 2006 and learned about it by having an appalling fall on a tennis court. That’s another…
February 2, 2018 Columns by John Connor In Me Shorts, Midwinter: Why a Kilt Would Be Welcome It was Burns Night last week, which is always a joy. I love whisky and am very partial to haggis (tricky to source, as we only buy the outdoor roving haggis!). A few years before MS hit,…
January 26, 2018 Columns by John Connor The Antibiotic Time Loop My arms are heavy. Strong antibiotics have held off a urinary tract infection (UTI) for the last eight weeks — evolution isn’t on my side. In fact, I’m distinctly beginning to feel like the British Expeditionary Force in…
January 19, 2018 Columns by John Connor It’s Been a Bad Week It was late. I dropped the TV remote on the bedroom floor. No biggie. I was sitting on my commode (don’t worry, it was in its chair configuration!) and was reasonably close to the ground. No thinking involved,…
January 12, 2018 Columns by John Connor A Quiet Week I could be in a fancy restaurant in central London rather than sitting at home writing this. Don’t feel sorry for me, I chose to stay in. The Christmas month of December is very hard. Extreme partying is allied…
January 5, 2018 Columns by John Connor New Year’s Resolution: Do What You Can, While You Can There ‘s a top 10 list of New Year’s resolutions that are most commonly made and then most commonly broken. Lose weight, get fit, stop smoking (well, never touch hard drugs like tobacco), and spend more…
December 22, 2017 Columns by John Connor Santa and His Helpers The trouble with being a mythological supernatural being is that you begin to doubt your own existence. It was all “Marvel this” and “DC that” over kids’ toy choices these past few years. Dads tried to be…
March 21, 2024 Columns by Benjamin Hofmeister I’m a disabled veteran, but sometimes it’s hard to explain