independence

Who wants to go on holiday?!  I know, I know, we can’t physically go anywhere right now, but what if I told you that you could go anywhere you wanted while staying at home? Stay with me! It’s been really sunny and blindingly hot in the U.K.

I’m grateful that I’ve worked from home for a long time. I imagine that, for many people, working from home for the first time is a difficult adjustment. How do you stay focused on work without going stir crazy? …

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 delicate, I instantly got to slam around in my very own…

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 controls. To go somewhere on my own, I needed someone to…

To those who judge me for using my disabled parking permit when I seemingly look “healthy and well,” please consider your words. There are people out there who “call out” others who they think are “abusing the system” and taking up an accessible space when it looks like they don’t…

Effective money management, critical to independent living, is particularly  difficult for people whose multiple sclerosis (MS) affects executive thinking skills and who struggle with depression and anxiety, a study reports. The study, “Money Management in Multiple Sclerosis: The Role of Cognitive, Motor, and Affective Factors,” was published in the…

What worries you most about living with multiple sclerosis? I’m catching up with a small survey by Can Do MS, an organization that promotes health and wellness education programs. The survey results, released in September, show that disease progression, financial concerns, and loss of independence are at the top…

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. Motability Scheme is a program that provides financial assistance to help people lease an accessible…

This is not the week to tell me how good I look … even if I look and feel good. The week of Oct. 13 is Invisible Disabilities Week. As we all know, multiple sclerosis (MS) can be as invisible as Casper the Ghost. Invisible Disabilities Week isn’t limited…

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 of driving it without putting cracks in my house. When a district nurse visited last…

Editor’s note: “Need to Know” is a series inspired by common forum questions and comments from readers. Have a comment or question about MS? Visit our forum. This week’s question is inspired by the forum topic “How Occupational Therapy Is Improving My MS Home Life” from April 15, 2018.

The glow of the fireworks bathes the surrounding trees. A kaleidoscope of blue, yellow, and red illuminates the night sky. It is a day of picnics, parades, and pyrotechnics. It is the Fourth of July, when Americans celebrate gaining their independence from Great Britain. I can relate to celebrating…

It’s taken over a year to conceive, organize, and plan, but yesterday, I was able to leave the house on my own. I even checked that I had my house keys on me as, in theory, I could now also get in on my own. This is not strictly true:…

I’ve used an electric scooter for nearly 20 years. At first, I only used it when I knew I’d be walking a lot. Now, it’s every day. I used a cane for several years before the scooter. I resisted using both, however, and I’ll bet that many of you who…

Second in a series. Read part one.  I’m actually driving! I really can’t remember the last time I had done so. The car I’d had for years from Motability, a car and scooter program in the U.K. to help the disabled enjoy worry-free motoring (it really works, folks), had…

Editor’s note: “Need to Know” is a series inspired by common forum questions and comments from readers. Have a comment or question about MS? Visit our forum. This week’s question is inspired by the forum topic “Have you ever been discriminated against due to your disability?” from May 29,…

Take a minute … and relax. It’s been a fraught few weeks of numerous solo hospital visits, as my wife was first dealing with a dying father and then helping to organize his funeral, estate, and her own turbulent emotions. Her mum had died only four months ago.

I have a hard time asking for help. Even when it’s offered, my knee-jerk reaction is to decline. Only in desperation do I reach out for, or accept, much-needed assistance. I say I am OK more often than I am. I do things myself more than I should.

One of the hardest things I’ve had to accept with MS is the necessity of asking for help. Pride and self-reliance dissipate remarkably quickly when you find yourself splayed on the floor and you no longer have the capacity to get up. In extremis, I then ask for help.

Five finalists remain in the running for the $1 million prize being offered in the Mobility Unlimited Challenge, a global competition to promote the development of innovative solutions for personal mobility devices. A panel of expert judges selected the finalists from among 80 applications submitted by teams from 28 countries.

People with multiple sclerosis (MS) value exercise and physical activity far beyond the concept of “staying fit,” and consider exercise essential to maintaining a reasonable level of independence and being able to engage in social activities, a small U.K. study based on interviews reports.  The study, “…

When you have MS, finding a way to dress for success means more than just looking sharp. It means dressing to both look good and feel good about yourself while wearing clothing that’s easy to wear. Finding those clothes takes a little more effort than simply going into a…

When a progressively debilitating disease like multiple sclerosis (MS) causes a patient to feel physically “wiped out” after a simple daily activity, such as a shower, it is of utmost importance for these individuals and the people in their support system to understand how they can maintain independence for…

A family wedding in the gardens of a grand country house some 30 minutes from Oxford sounds idyllic. And indeed it was. Not, though, for anyone in a wheelchair. A deep pebble driveway at the front was impassable. It took very strong men to drag me backward a few yards. Going…

Researchers at the University of Missouri found that a lack of appropriate clothing designed for people with disabilities, caused by accidents or chronic diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS), can be a barrier to participation and a sense of inclusion in the workplace. Because workplace attire can be specific and…

So many of us are affected by disabilities, and day-to-day we strive to live our lives the best we can. The struggles due to these disabilities can consume a lot of our precious and sparse energy. Anything that can be modified in the home, at businesses, or anywhere we choose…

My knee was jerking the other day. It wasn’t my MS, it was my knee-jerk reaction to the passage in the U.S. House of Representatives of a bill called the ADA Education and Reform Act of 2017 (HR 620). Before the vote, people with disabilities demonstrated inside the…

I was just monkeying around while on vacation a few weeks ago, amazed that the animals jumping between my wife and myself were actually listening to the commands of their owner. I knew that chimps and apes were smart, but seeing monkeys respond to commands was new to me.

For those of us in the workforce, our MS can sometimes make a workday challenging. The Americans with Disabilities Act allows for an employee to request reasonable accommodations from their employer. Included in the act are three broad accommodation categories. One focuses on the hiring process, and…

In my youth, I hitchhiked the breadth of North America ― Canada, from east to west. I had 16 first cousins in the country and only my parents back at home. My quest was to meet them all. Which I duly did. I traversed the whole of the Trans-Canada…