Mr Brightside

Perspective. Comparisons. Sliding scales.

They’re all interesting phrases when applied to the way you view things – wealth, achievements, career, family, life. Illness.

Like a number of chronic diseases, the perceived seriousness of MS sits on shifting sands depending on who you speak to.

Perhaps you’ve dealt with reactions from people at the oh-it’s-not-so-bad end of the scale. They’ve seen someone being amazing on the Paralympics with it. Or know a friend’s mum who has had it for 25 years and still doesn’t need a walking stick. Perhaps they know someone who works fulltime and goes to the gym every other day?

On the other hand, perhaps they’re at the other end of the scale and they’ve got a pretty bleak outlook for you. Maybe they’ve cared for someone with the primary progressive form? Watched someone deteriorate before their eyes? Seen someone in the end stages of MS?

It’s entirely possible you’ve dealt with these – and many opinions in between – from the medical community.

During the summer I saw a gp I don’t normally see. He asked how I was generally and we had a general chat about MS and recent research.

He concluded by saying it would be good for his newly-diagnosed patients to see me still working and with a family.

“Because really, for you, it’s just an inconvenience,” he finished. With a reassuring smile, believing he’d said the right thing.

And, if I take a deep breath to calm down and think about that proclamation, then to some degree he was right. I’m currently not hugely debilitated. I still work, drive and most of the time I appear to function like everyone else.

To a gp, who is bound to come across far more aggressive cases, he may well believe he could describe my MS as ‘an inconvenience’ and there’s a little bit of me that sort of accepts that.

But to me an inconvenience means a flat tyre or the radiators needing bleeding or running out of teabags.

It does not mean slipping down the workforce ladder because I know I couldn’t manage it or missing most of the things healthy people take for granted or making the painful decision to not extend our family.

None of these things would I describe as ‘an inconvenience.’

So while I do recognise that I am somewhere in the middle of the health-death track bar, I think we would all like recognition of our own personal scales and a bit more consideration of what might actually count as our inconvenience.

:: Mr Brightside by The Killers