Jennifer Powell, an MS patient advocate, shares how she prepares for symptom flares in public, including heat sensitivity, falls, and communication challenges. Read her column, “Silver Linings.”
Transcript
Sudden onset of things in public, like symptoms, they can be scary. And sometimes in public, I can put on false bravado because I don’t want to be helped, and it can be embarrassing.
But my husband, I have armed him with an arsenal of things because he is my companion most of the time in public.
When I’m having heat exacerbation, he knows to go in my purse or in the car and get my cooling towel that I can immediately immerse in water, and for six hours it’ll be cool. I can wrap it around my core. He knows things to do for me, to cool my core temperature, to get that down, to get me ice water.
Another thing is when I fall. We have this saying, my husband and I have: “Assess,” which is to confer with me, “and then we act.” But we don’t act, then assess. It’s critical because, for me, I need a check-in. Like, “What did I hurt? Did I hurt myself? What are the next steps to that?”
Also, when I do walk the dog, I carry it with me because it can look like any different thing. I might be able to get the dog across the street. I might not be able to go far, but I’ve fallen many times. “What are things I need on my own person to alert someone passing by that I need help?”
A lot of things that I’ve done have — I carry, like something to make sure my identification and my location at all times is on, to make sure somebody can find me, to make sure I have a way to communicate with people, and to make sure if I can’t talk, because a lot of times my symptoms will act so I can’t speak cohesively. I carry a card that says, “I need help, please call,” and I have phone numbers.
