I have had MS for 8 years now. Looking back I was very scared when I first got diagnosed. I didn’t really know what would happen to me in the future, I felt like I couldn’t plan anything and started living day to day. Life changed forever.

My eyes saw double. My legs would stumble and I looked like I was drunk wherever I went. My hands didn’t do what I told them to do. I felt like I couldn’t cope with one more thing going wrong with my body.

Then I looked around me. Things could be a lot worse. I still had my friends and family. I saw people with MS that were in wheelchairs and using scooters. I saw this as a bad thing then. It was a sign that they had lost their mobility. I didn’t see that they were actually doing the best thing for them, and by using wheelchairs and scooters they were reversing what the MS was doing to them. They were mobile again.

My MS got slowly worse and my mobility really began to suffer. I was still one of the lucky ones; I just had to readjust to what my body was telling me. I needed to slow down and take stock of my life. I let go of preconceptions that I had about disability. I found that just by using simple mobility equipment helped me do the things that I used to take for granted.

Journeys to the shops were no longer a chore by using my mobility scooter.  My walking was made easier by using a walking stick.  Thanks to my bathboard I no longer dreaded getting in and out of the bath.

Author: Jane