Martin Baum

This year, as I write, I realise what an undertaking it is to round up 2020 in an end of year blog.

Depending on which side of the superstition divide you stand, there is a rule of thought that says either good or bad things come in threes.

At the age of 60 I wasted what feels like a lifetime inside a bubble of my own making. I burst it only a couple of years ago when I worked it out that it really was better to live life and not MS.

Thinking of others does make a difference, not least because it distracts us from our own troubles. Try it - it works.

Being the cockeyed optimist that I am has helped me to not only live life positively with MS but also (hopefully) survive the coronavirus lockdown.

My relationship with sleep, like any other relationship, is a complicated one.

If my own personal circumstances hadn’t changed then self-quarantining could have been completely different by about a hundred miles.

For some of us in the MS community, self-isolation is old news.

For my 60th birthday, my wife, son and his partner decided to surprise me with a weekend in Paris.

There’s one thing that will never be on my Christmas list and that’s a new walking stick.

For me, one of the most irritating hidden symptoms is one I’m still yet to discover the name of because not much is made of it.

There are days when I think I’ve got the measure of my MS and I think all is well, considering.

Blessed with a combination of lack of sensitivity, poor balance and circulatory problems, my feet have become an absolute liability all year round.

It was my wife who first introduced me to the concept of mindfulness. She's always been one step ahead of me when it comes to my wellbeing.

The doctor delivered the diagnosis so matter-of-factly I thought I was having déjà vu.

It’s hard to maintain a decent sense of self while simultaneously trying to cope with MS. But it doesn't have to be that way.

Caroline Wyatt’s Radio 4 PM programmes about MS research certainly lived up to the BBC’s remit to educate, inform and entertain.

The first time I used a disabled toilet was not a pleasant experience. This was the 80s and I was a ‘normal-looking’ young man.

If told that there was a chance of a cure for MS, most people, I imagine, would jump at it. Even if it was on the other side of the world.

The experience of watching the EastEnders story unfold, and reach its conclusion last night, has left me deeply saddened.

Being relevant is many things to many people and I am no exception. After one too many MS relapses I stopped writing and it was then I felt I was no longer relevant.

With the forthcoming MS Awareness Week and World MS Day looming large, I’m put in mind of the first time I was out collecting on the street with a roll of MS Society stickers and a collection box.

MS is such a sly illness. Only people who live with it know how unforgiving it can often be.

I still can’t say why or how focusing my mind has resulted in a calming of my MS-related symptoms, but it appears to have done just that.