Fall Down, Get Up Again
— John Connor

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…

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,…

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,…

What did I write about last New Year’s? As usual, it was related to a bodily function: urinary tract infections (UTIs). Then, readers almost unanimously recommended methenamine hippurate. I had tried several…

This would be Santa’s third year as a disabled, magical creature. He seemed to be the only one but took some comfort that even the mighty Avengers had taken a few casualties. Not…

I rolled onto the neurology ward of the hospital that has been dealing with my disease from the beginning. The nurses, whom I’ve met innumerable times, opened with their normal jolly, “How are you?”…

With “The Terminator” involved, it’s fair enough that this tale starts out as a father-son thing. My son, Jack, kept needling me to watch a film on Netflix U.K. called “The Game Changers.”…

Fear grips me. Marijuana relaxes, eases pain, and helps my body work better. It also stirs paranoia, but only when you let it. In bed, a fretful waking dream. This is a problem…

I didn’t file a column last week due to medical reasons. It’s a perfect excuse for a patient columnist — we don’t need a dog to blame for eating our homework. The multiple sclerosis…

By 2017, over 50,000 people with disabilities in the U.K. had lost their accessible vehicles due to reassessments required by Personal Independence Payment (PIP), a financial assistance program for people with disabilities.

As I sit down (nothing unusual there — all I do these days is sit down!) and write this, I’m 62 years and one day old. On Saturday morning, it felt like I still…

Many of us live with a reality that we’re too embarrassed to talk about, even with medical professionals. Multiple sclerosis (MS) prevents us from pooing properly — no matter how much fiber we consume…

For the last few months, urinary tract infections (UTIs) have been the main subject of this column. My current disease-modifying therapy, Ocrevus (ocrelizumab), has had a significant impact on my multiple sclerosis…

I’ve been whinging for months now about struggling on through near-constant urinary tract infections. This week’s joyous occasion was finally having a poo (hurrah), but then not having the energy to do anything…

“Events, my dear boy, events.” Because of my own political proclivities, I don’t tend to quote old Conservative prime ministers, unless, of course, it’s Winston Churchill. In his semi-youth, he crossed the floor to…

Ah, the sequel. Back in April, I wrote about getting an electric wheelchair and then spending hours working out how to get it going. Six months later, I may have cracked the challenge…

There’s always something. The trouble with a mélange of complex medical issues is that one good action often can lead to a bad secondary one. It’s like a game of consequences that unfortunately not…

Things had been going well with my electric wheelchair, but now I found myself out of control, heading toward the TV. I put my one good foot down in a feeble attempt to delay…

I was struck down by sclerosis in 2006 — literally. I was playing tennis and ran to return a drop shot. I never made it, but I did drop myself and rupture my right…

The joys of MS are never-ending. One area that gets disrupted by this disease of the central nervous system is our pelvic regions. That affects bladder, bowel, and sexual function. I’ve written about all…