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â ď¸ Please read with care: This blog shares personal, sometimes painful experiences. My intention is to support and speak honestlyânot to harm. Iâm not a professional, just someone who understands how hard it can get. If you're struggling, you're not aloneâplease reach out for help.
đĄ Chapter 1: What in the name of Whizzer IS Multiple Sclerosis?! Picture it: The Bumpkin Billionaires inherit a CT scanner and decide to diagnose me.
âReckon yer brainâs leakinâ somethinâ, boy!â says Pa Bumpkin, sticking the plug into a turnip.
đ§ Real Talk: MS is a condition where your immune system has a hissy fit and starts attacking the protective sheath (myelin) around your nerves. Itâs like wrapping your wires in wet loo roll and expecting your kettle to work.
đ Chapter 2: Symptoms, or âWhy is my leg doing the Macarena?â Sidâs Snake is wriggling around my spinal cord: âEre Sid, whyâs âis leg twitchinâ? You got batteries in yer bum again?â
đ Common MS Symptoms:
Numbness
Brain fog (or as Sid calls it, âSoggy nogginâ)
Spasticity (tight muscles, not what they used to call you at school)
Fatigue that hits like a cricket bat to the soul
Vision like someone smeared jam on your eyeballs
đ¸ Chapter 3: Diagnosis â Not a Game of âGuess Who?â Odd-Ball tries to diagnose you by morphing into a GP, a neurologist, and a confused chicken.
đ˛ Real Talk: Getting diagnosed with MS involves MRIs, lumbar punctures, blood tests, and usually a couple of years of gaslighting.
âYouâre just stressed, love.â âYou just need more exercise.â âYouâve got a trapped nerve.â
Or as Odd-Ball puts it: âHave you tried turning your spinal cord off and on again?â
đ° Chapter 4: Living With MS â Like Baking a Cake With No Recipe and a Flamethrower Ma Bumpkin tries to make me a wellness cake: âPut in some turmeric, a crystal, and chant at it, thatâll fix yer myelin!â
đ Truth Bomb: Living with MS means daily unpredictability, social misunderstanding, and trying not to murder people who say âBut you donât look ill.â
đď¸ Chapter 5: Fatigue â Not Just Tired, Knackered Beyond the Grave Shiner from Chips tries to outrun me in a wheelchair race. Shiner wins. I am still in bed.
đ§ âFatigue in MS isnât just âsleepyâ. Itâs a lead weight in your bones, a fog in your brain, and a punch to your will to live.â
đ§ââď¸ Chapter 6: MS Treatments â Magic Potions and Bloody Side Effects Professor Nutty from Whizzer and Chips tries to cure me with an exploding cauldron and a DIY infusion.
đ In Real Life:
DMTs (disease-modifying therapies) might slow the MS progression
Steroids for relapses
Gabapentin, Baclofen, and âevery pill under the sunâ for the other crap
Side effects? Oh yes. All of them.
đ§ź Chapter 7: Coping Mechanisms â Or âHow I Learned to Stop Crying and Love the Chaosâ The Bumpkin Billionaires start an MS yoga retreat with goats, mud, and sausages. It fails catastrophically.
đ ď¸ Real tips:
Keep a sarcastic blog (tick)
Own your story
Take breaks before your body breaks you
Ask for help (but donât expect people to understand)
Cultivate dark humour like a fine mouldy cheese
đš Final Word from me This isnât your mumâs guide to MS. This is a piss-stained, tea-spilled, rage-and-laughter-soaked survival manual for living with something that tries to break you every bloody day. And like Sidâs Snake, I twist, I turn, but Iâm still slithering on.
I write in ink and fury, in breath and broken bone.
Through storm and silence, I survive. That is the crime and the miracle.