After everything that I have been through over the last year, I have come to realise how important it is to have a sense of humour. To be able to laugh at yourself is an amazing thing! It can certainly help when you meet someone that you haven’t seen for ages and they don’t know the new situation. If I am sitting in my mobility scooter and make a joke about my awesome wheels, it can really diffuse the tension.

As you have probably discovered over the course of this blog, I fall over a lot! Sometimes they are nothing but painful, but there are a few that are so ridiculous, you can only laugh. Super Sarah tends to look at me for confirmation that I am not hurt, she likes to check. I will start to giggle and she then relaxes and laughs at the situation (sometimes a little too hard for my liking!).

MS comes with all sorts of weird symptoms and side affects, none of which you will ever be able to predict. You might have them for the rest of your life or they could go away in a few days/weeks. It’s anyone’s guess really! My nervous system sometimes seems to be playing games with me, I am sure of it.

Did any of you read The Beano in your youth? I did and absolutely loved it. There were characters called The Numbskulls, who were little tiny people that operated a person’s body. My Numbskulls are either drunk or skiving! They skip duties and expect someone to complete the action for them and I haven’t been able to find a replacement for the Numbskull in my left leg! So for now, that leg can be operated by electricity. Hopefully, I will be able to fill the position soon.

But it’s not just the physical issues that cause problems, there are the cognitive issues. I very occasionally have days where I am worth not very much. I call this a Cognitively Cloudy day, mostly because I love alliteration, but also because it feels like I have to trudge through a marshland in deep fog on those days. Expect a full sentence from me when I feel like this? You are lucky that I have even acknowledged that you have said something!

As you can probably tell, I like to name things. It is how I cope with everything but it also means that when I am on the phone with Super Sarah, I can mention one of my terms and she knows exactly what I mean without having a huge conversation about it. I have even named my walking aids. So far we have Rod (walking stick for with splint), Tod (walking stick for with FES), Max (my delta walker for longer journeys and hard days) and Scoot (my mobility scooter). The naming of these aids means we can leave the house without a half hour wait. Super Sarah shouts “who are we taking today” and all I need to do is shout a name and she knows which aid to fetch for me before I fall down again. It’s a brilliant system.

Naming your walking aids also means you have a name to shout to when one of them is horrible. If I fall and it is all Rod’s fault, he will certainly know about it!

There is also fatigue! Around 3pm each day, I have a fatigue. It is not restricted to this time and situation, but this is the reliable one. If I am work, I tend to try to go for a short walk. Though this is when I feel like I am walking through very thick sludge in the heat of the Sahara Desert. Nonetheless, I have managed to fall asleep in some weird circumstances and missed an hour or two (not at work I must stress).

One one occasion, Super Sarah was deconstructing a pallet to build a set of shelves for flowers on the balcony. I promptly fell asleep. After hearing her hammer once or twice, I opened my eyes, furious that she was making this racket whilst I was sleeping, very rude! Actually, she was literally hammering in the last nail after finishing her project, I had been asleep for just over 2 hours and missed all of the other nails being hammered in. Still rude though, right?

If I can give anyone advice, whatever your situation, see the funny side of as much as you can. It makes the hard things a lot easier to get through. And in all honesty, I think it has brought Super Sarah and I closer as we have a lot of funny stories and anecdotes to laugh about and share with our friends and family. Don’t take life so seriously, have a giggle instead!