All the World’s a (MS) Stage

*An introduction to our upcoming series discussing many of the stages of life with multiple sclerosis*

“All the world's a stage,” wrote the Bard, himself, “And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts…” Now, I’m no poet but I think that each of us can say that multiple sclerosis has made its entrances and exits on and at the different stages of our lives.

MS, the people living with it and how it affects us are all different depending on the time, place and circumstance of our lives as well as on the symptoms brought by the disease. Once considered a “prime of life” disease, new diagnostics coupled with patient and physician awareness of MS have made it something with which a younger cohort of friends are now having to cope.

For this reason I am quite very excited to act as Chorus and enter our darkened auditorium and set the stage for you by announcing an important, informative – and likely entertaining – series of blog essays under the broad header of “The Stages of Multiple Sclerosis”

Over the next two and a half months our talented and passionate bloggers will introduce topics from early signs and pre-diagnosis (by our Donegal blogger Niamh McCarron), being diagnosed and living with MS as a younger person (by 2014 MS Person of the Year Aoife Kirwan) and sibling relationships to -and with- MS (by Lucina Russell whose brother also lives with MS); through fertility and pregnancy with MS (by new mammy, Emma Rogan) and parenting (by mother of two, Joan Jordan).  Willeke Van Eeckhoutte, who has lived with MS for 15 years, will write about aging with multiple sclerosis; travel enthusiast, Declan Groeger, will tell us how hobbies and activities and passions can change and be adapted and we’ll wrap the series with nursing and assistive care and MS by our resident librarian, Helen Farrell.

All-in-all, I’d say that we’ve an interesting line up for you in the coming weeks and months. We welcome and even encourage you to comment on these blogs and to share them with others in your life so they, too, may understand life with MS a little bit better.

To paraphrase the poet and playwright whose words with which I opened;  

Admit me Chorus to this MS story;
Your humble patience pray, in my awkward prologue
Gently to read, kindly to judge, our serial blog.

Wishing you and your family the best of health.

Cheers

Trevis

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