Living with chronic illness – 5 tips for newly diagnosed

Being diagnosed with a chronic illness, like multiple sclerosis, can be devastating. In this post I let you know my experience after being diagnosed and the 5 tips to help you.

“Just keep doing what you are doing”. That is exactly what I was recommended to do by my neurologist 25 years ago when I asked him what can I do to help me with Multiple Sclerosis. This diagnosis was crushing. Living in a new city, London, and after starting training as a Chartered Accountant, I thought the world was an oyster, with multiple pearls waiting for me to pluck them. This new element in my life cruelly took this oyster away from me and replaced it with a barren landscape of unending sand. Shifting, unsettling, and blinding me with its storms.

The first months

In the space of a few short months, the sensation in my hands was numbed and replaced with pins and needles, making everything feel like sandpaper. My walking had become slow and laboured as my right leg felt like it was walking in a fast flowing river, and my left leg was unfettered. Every morning when the alarm pulled me from my 9 hours sleep, I crawled out of bed. The fatigue of MS making every movement a Herculean effort. The tears of anger, the rage of impotence, and the fog of not knowing what new symptom would attack me was making work a…