The 60th anniversay of the MS Society got me thinking about a friend of my mother’s in the 1950’s (I was born the same year as the MS Society… 1953!)
I remember my mother had a good friend called Mrs.Martin who had MS. She seemed very old to me but actually was only in her 40’s. She was a wheelchair user but my mum says when she first met her she was fully mobile.
I remember we went to see her in a London hospital in 1963… the reason I remember is because we were about to emmigrate to Australia (on the £10 deal), and she was very ill and in a ward with other women with MS. I felt very frightened in the somewhat gloomy ward but all of the women were very sweet and welcoming to us.
A few months later when we were in Sydney Australia my mother had a letter saying that Mrs.Martin had died. I remember my mother holding the letter and sobbing.
As I said, she was only in her 40’s and must have had complications which would probably have been treatable now.
Anyone else remember anyone with MS in 1950’s or 60’s?
Makes me aware of how lucky we are really… the first generation to have the real hope of a cure in our lifetime… and if not our lifetime at least for those who come after us.
Thanks for that Pat - very interesting to hear how things were for MSers! Sorry about your Mum’s friend. As you say - they may have been able to save her nowadays. I hope the cure will come in our lifetime! Teresa xx
I dont know anyone in the 50’s wity MS but I was only born in the 60’s, but no one in my family has any problem with their balance or anything.
But reading your story about visiting the lady in hospital, got me remembering when in 1993 when I was rushed into hospital for tests I was misdiagnosed until 2006, but the ward I was on, there was a lady in the bed infront of me, the nurses had to feed her and turn the telly over for her when I asked the nurse what is the lady suffering with was told she has MS and she was there on restbite, once that lady had gone home another lady took her place somedays she could walk with a stick or she had to go into a wheelchair, the nurses thought it was very good as I had bad balance so I pushed her in her wheelchair to the dayroom, so between us we worked well, little did I know what diagnoses I would get in 2006, but yes we are all lucky to be given treatments to hopefully change the course of our MS, but thinking about them two ladies I saw in 1993 does freak me out, it gets me doing my upmost to keep well and carry on as long as I can,