September 24, 2021 Columns by John Connor Despite the Nerves, I Attended My First Family Gathering in 2 Years 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…
September 17, 2021 Columns by John Connor What Did I Do Over My MS Holiday? Stand-up! 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…
August 13, 2021 Columns by John Connor MS Presents ‘Horror Weekends’ 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…
August 6, 2021 Columns by John Connor ‘All Change Please, the Medical Equipment You’re Using Ends Here’ 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…
July 30, 2021 Columns by John Connor The Painful Tooth: My Weekend of Agony 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,…
July 23, 2021 Columns by John Connor ‘He’s Fallen in the Water!’ 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…
July 16, 2021 Columns by John Connor Down and Out in London Town 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…
July 9, 2021 Columns by John Connor Lockdown Blues: Well That Was a Close Shave! 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…
July 2, 2021 Columns by John Connor Will Football Help Me Get Through a Tough Week? 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…
June 25, 2021 Columns by John Connor I’ve Nothing Awful to Write About My MS This Week 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…
June 18, 2021 Columns by John Connor Be Warned: Another Column All About My MS and Me! 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…
June 11, 2021 Columns by John Connor A Drizzly Summer Weekend and an Antibiotic Rejection 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…
June 4, 2021 Columns by John Connor My Latest Trigeminal Neuralgia Attack Was Like a Knife Through the Molar 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.
May 28, 2021 Columns by John Connor This Fall Was a Real Eye-opener 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…
May 21, 2021 Columns by John Connor Introducing My ‘MS Popeye-Spinach Hypothesis’ 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.
May 14, 2021 Columns by John Connor MS and Boxing: Being Clever With My Pants 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,…
May 7, 2021 Columns by John Connor Slipping Over the Event Horizon Into SPMS 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…
April 30, 2021 Columns by John Connor You’ve Got to Hide Your MS Away In honor of MS Awareness Week, observed in the U.K. April 19–25, the MS Society released results of a survey about the barriers that keep multiple sclerosis patients from sharing their health status. Multiple Sclerosis News Today‘s Mary Chapman…
April 23, 2021 Columns by John Connor My Own ‘Left Hand of Darkness’ I was listening to a BBC podcast recently titled “The Sinister Hand,” about the history of left-handers. It seems that in medieval times, left-handedness was associated with sorcery. (What wasn’t?) It was only relatively recently that left-handed children…
