May 29, 2020 Columns by John Connor Growing Up to Be a Strapping Big Baby It was 4 a.m. and a crisis was brewing. I knew that this time, I’d be a nincompoop if I tried to deal with the situation myself, as I’d faced spectacular failures recently with the poop bit. I was…
May 22, 2020 Columns by John Connor Short and Sharp This column will be short as I am quite ill. That’s nothing too unusual for those of us with MS. Oh, the joys of a relapse. A while back, it stopped me from walking. Now it’s stopped me from…
May 15, 2020 Columns by John Connor Waving the Flag of Victory Hi there. It’s me, typing again on my very ownsome! For the last two weeks, I’ve been too ill to manage, so my wife kindly acted as a secretary — another of her many talents! I apologize for…
May 8, 2020 Columns by John Connor Putting Down the Ritz My stomach is grumbling. I’ve just had the worst weekend ever. And that includes when I had my first sclerosis and smashed my shoulder to pieces on a tennis court. I mentioned last week that I didn’t…
May 1, 2020 Columns by John Connor Keeping It All in the Family I’ve never done this before, but I’m dictating this column to my wife. She has many attributes, among them being trained as a secretary many years ago. We went to the same further-education college when we were both in…
April 24, 2020 Columns by John Connor Everything I Should Have Written About but Haven’t Gotten Round to So far, this week has been horrible, but I’ll give that a brief mention later. The truth ain’t pretty, nor do I think it always makes good copy. Unless I go for the trite “However bad it is out…
April 17, 2020 Columns by John Connor Zen and the Art of UTI Maintenance I knew a urinary tract infection (UTI) had come a visiting again. I’m now attuned to the slightest hint, like that vague burning after weeing. Indeed, it doesn’t have to burn; it could merely be the faintest tinkle —…
April 10, 2020 Columns by John Connor Becoming Self-absorbed with MS During the Pandemic With everything being so awful, the goal is to write uplifting copy. OK, sounds like my sort of gig. One way of dealing with things is to become self-absorbed with the old MS. I think it’s getting jealous. How…
April 3, 2020 Columns by John Connor In Training for Solitary Confinement I’ve just been sentenced to at least 18 months in solitary without time off even for good behavior! Pretty harsh. Luckily, I’m match fit. I’ve already previously done nearly a year trapped in my bedroom with only a…
March 27, 2020 Columns by John Connor Do They Know It’s Not Christmas? Quarantine sure feels like Christmas. The shops are stripped bare. The streets are empty. Family homes are stuffed with everyone returning home. In our case, my wife rescued my youngest son from his cool digs near Hammersmith in West…
March 20, 2020 Columns by John Connor Let’s All Take a Deep Breath Take a deep breath, and I don’t mean the kind promoted by fake memes infecting the web to “prove” that you don’t have COVID-19! My deep-breath moment was in a small elevator at my doctor’s office. An able-bodied…
March 16, 2020 Columns by Brad Dell What New Hell Is This? There’s nothing like a good, old-fashioned bacteriological pincer attack to take your mind off impending death. I’m not exaggerating about the impending bit. A friend/colleague was supposed to fly to Rome today for a holiday but Italy has just…
March 6, 2020 Columns by John Connor You Know Things Are Bad When the Banks Tell You to Wear a Mask I know the new strain of coronavirus is bad, but in the face of impending doom, I’m likely to find humor. Anyone who has had more aggressive disease-modifying therapies (DMTs) like Lemtrada (alemtuzumab) and Ocrevus (ocrelizumab) likely…
February 28, 2020 Columns by John Connor The World Turned Upside Down Being disabled constricts what my body does — but I’m still me. For a long time, I was trapped as I could no longer self-propel my self-propelled wheelchair. Then last summer, my powered one turned up! Wham-bam-crash-slam! Never…
February 14, 2020 Columns by John Connor And the Biofilm Goes to … The medical profession must be sick and tired of patients diagnosing themselves via the wonders of the internet. But as a patient who’s sick and tired, you eventually have to. Medicine is full of orthodoxies that are incredibly hard…
February 7, 2020 Columns by John Connor This Story Has Legs — One Leg, At Least! This is the story of how I became a patient columnist. Three years ago, I was still walking. Shambling, anyway. I could get up and down stairs but had to rest before reaching my ordinary car with fitted hand…
January 31, 2020 Columns by John Connor Here’s My ‘Veganuary’ Report I’m well aware that new converts can be bores. I started an increasingly trendy vegan lifestyle back in December. It’s only been two months, but it seems like a year! That’s because I love meat, fish, cheese, and…
January 24, 2020 Columns by John Connor The Mind-Body Interface Well, this is one way of showing that I attended first-year philosophy seminars: Draw on the thoughts of Plato and Aristotle, then leap two millennia to Descartes. I never studied history, but I’m actually far more comfortable with it!…
January 17, 2020 Columns by John Connor It’s Only a Matter of Time There was a time when I didn’t have deadlines. I’d finally finished academia. No more essays ever! In theory, I still had seven essays to write. Luckily, those essays could only improve my grade, so I got away with…
January 10, 2020 Columns by John Connor Lo, on the Very First Vegan Christmas Only 347 shopping days to go! So don’t dismiss this as a column about last Christmas (though that’s what it is!) but as possibly the first on the planet about the next one. Luckily, I quite like nut roast.
September 21, 2023 Columns by Benjamin Hofmeister Learning the hard way that with MS, no infection is routine