For most people, New Year’s resolutions go the way of the fleeting fame of one-hit wonders, like Mambo No. 5 and that breakup song from Gotye with that cool video. Resolutions start out with the best of intentions and then after a few weeks they crumble into fine dust and skitter away in chilly late January winds. There has to be a better way. For people with multiple sclerosis, there is....   3 min read Bold resolutions and Cheetos Kicking off a new year goes hand-in-hand with resolutions, bold resolutions, and resolutions so bold they make Kennedy's moonshot proclamation  ..read more

Due to the 2020 pandemic, Laura and I hadn’t left our neighborhood in months except for doctor appointments. But then we hatched a plan. We were going to leave the city limits entirely (gulp!) with our brand new portable toilet and our brand new wheelchair-accessible minivan. We were going to boldly drive up into the mountains and have a romantic picnic. Just the two of us. And our untested porta potty and our untested Honda Odyssey minivan. What, oh what, could possibly go wrong on this three-hour tour? Picture Gilligan's Island meets the Griswolds. Oh boy...     6 min read ..read more

I’ve been all over the world with multiple sclerosis—to every continent sans Antarctica, to dozens of countries, to thousands of towns and cities. I always wax poetic about my adventurous travels. And yet as a seasoned MS globetrotter, oh so much seasoning, I have a confession. Before every trip, I am nervous as all get out. One would think after trekking through the Himalayas, scooching on my butt around Machu Picchu, camping in the Sahara, and heli-hiking over New Zealand glaciers, I would be over pre-trip jitters. But no. As the clock ticks down to my departing flight, my stomach is in k ..read more

Oof, this one stings a bit. Before I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2006, I was the chef of the house. I made all the breakfasts, all the lunches, all the dinners. Laura was the baker, the dessert maker. And we were great at our roles. Evenings were feasts and I relished every opportunity to play in my kitchen (emphasis on MY kitchen) and experiment with every type of cuisine this planet has to offer. And I got good at it. Real good. Like chefy good. As a learning cook in my twenties, though, I had my colossal failures. So colossal, they are lore in our household, defined simply a ..read more

Poor Laura. I pride myself on being a bit stubborn with my feisty multiple sclerosis. Often it works. I’ve explored Machu Picchu, scooching down steps on my butt while Demi Moore looked on. I’ve hiked across rickety, bouncy wooden bridges risking life and limb, and survived. I’ve kayaked when I had no business kayaking, driven when I had no business driving, and cycled when I had no business cycling. And then there was last Friday night. We know how this story ends. Not well. So Laura and I were at a concert at a local winery, listening to a master sarod player accompanied by traditio ..read more

Oh, Dave. Dave, Dave, Dave. That’s sort of what the voice in my head was saying, along with maybe a few curse words, when I was trying to pee … in public, in broad daylight, in front of dozens of people. Let me explain. Multiple sclerosis forces those with the disease to adapt as it progresses, to bob and weave around new disabilities, learning new tricks. Recently I had come up with a brilliant one to overcome a common and vexing problem. How to pee on long bike rides when a bathroom wasn’t an option. In the past, I did what guys do on long rides: find a tree. But as my legs have gotten we ..read more

I’m sick, with multiple sclerosis. The comma is intentional. I have MS and I have a cold. Typing is no fun, sitting up is no fun, and trying to be funny is no fun. Fortunately, according to Laura, I don’t have to try to be funny. I just wake up that way with a cowlick. (An aside, when I was younger I used to warn my haircutter that I had colic, which puzzled the hell out of them when they started to cut this teenager’s hair. But that’s how my grandma pronounced “cowlick,” and I didn’t know any better.) The problem with getting sick when you have MS is that it gets the immune system revving q ..read more

Getting diagnosed with multiple sclerosis usually takes time. For some, it takes years, even decades. For others it might take months waiting for signs of progression before a neurologist will commit to a diagnosis and start treatment. But recent research has found that the earlier treatment is started—as of this writing there are 13 approved disease-modifying treatments in the US for MS—the better. “Real-world data … confirm the effectiveness of the early treatment strategy in delaying the accumulation of irreversible disability in RRMS patients,” said the October 2017 study. Yes, “irrevers ..read more

After I sprinted face-first into a tree playing kickball in 7th grade, a few things immediately ran through my twelve-year-old brain. One, that friggin hurt. Two, maybe I shouldn’t have just lectured my teammates to try harder to catch pop flies in my tree-littered front yard. And three, my future as an international spy was over. As blood from my lower lip was staining my shirt at an alarming pace, my mom tried to calm me down. But it’s hard to calm down when your life’s career plan just careened off a cliff. (And have you noticed that one always “careens off a cliff” never off a small ledg ..read more

I should have been tipped off when our Slovenian guide looked me at as if my head had just sprouted a glow-in-the-dark unicorn horn studded with bedazzled rhinestones perfectly placed by a unicorn horn bedazzler (as seen on TV, I’m guessing).   “Yes, the cave eez technically wheelchair accessible,” she said, pronouncing each syllable of “technically” with intent. She tried to illustrate the steepness of the path through Postojna Caves with her hand. Her palm was a few degrees shy of vertical. Laura was thinking, clearly, it couldn’t be that steep. After all, there were people on our tou ..read more