MS is a tricky disease that can cause you to struggle with things that you have learned a long time ago. I am bucking the trend and allowing an old dog (nearly 30) to be taught new(ish) tricks!

For me, MS affects my left arm. To put it politely, this is troublesome as I am left handed. Very typical! At the moment, I struggle with the simplest of tasks from opening a packet of crisps to writing, things that I have been doing for many years. Can you believe that I went through all those years of schooling, painstakingly learning to write neatly to then struggle to hold a pen and find it incredibly difficult to touch this pen to paper?

My physio, as always, has been amazing and has allowed me to borrow a hand splint that she has in the store cupboard until I get my own in December. This is an unusual sleeping companion but it does stop me from balling my fist when unconscious which means that the rest of me relaxes and I get a slightly better sleep.

I have told you all about the interesting dream that I have had since I started to sleep with this splint on. And poor Super Sarah often wakes to find the splint, who has been named Randall, has accidentally punched her or is lying scarily close to her face! It has always been a danger to sleep next to me though as I am a bit kicky, so she is no more uncomfortable.

Accidents and weird dreams aside, Randall has improved the general use of my hand and has allowed me to start learning to write again.

Learning to write once again can be incredibly frustrating and incredibly satisfying all at once. I proudly displayed a birthday card for a colleague at work once that I had signed all by myself. I even wrote and signed Super Sarah’s 30th birthday card last week. This is the sort of simple task that I can celebrate!

I do have a workbook that I picked up in Waterstones that I can write very small stories in to gain some practice with physical writing and for some experience with writing fiction, which I am trying to perfect.

However, my hand does tire very quickly, which means that I can only do things for short periods of time. For example, as mentioned, it was Super Sarah’s birthday last week and I found myself needing to wrap gifts. I relocated to our bedroom and sat down on the bed to wrap. I cut the wrapping paper (this was tricky before because I am left handed but it took a hell of a lot of concentration this time around!) then I realised that I needed to fetch the gifts so that I could actually wrap them.

I stretched to pick up the gifts from the side of our bed when this caused the spasticity to increase in my leg and arm muscles causing me to lie stiff and straight. It took a lot of effort to find a way out of this position but I did eventually reached the gifts. Back in my previous spot on the bed, I realised that I had been lying on the pair of scissors and had a nice mark on my leg – eejit!

After all of this effort, I started to wrap. This was a blooming tricky task with one good hand and a very tired claw. I had to hold paper in place whilst tearing tape and trying to stick this to the right place on the paper. Super Sarah is very lucky that she did not come through to find a taped ball of Karine sitting confused and whimpering on the bed!

With presents poorly but eventually wrapped, I look to Christmas with a weary submission. Some help will be required with wrapping this year!