While citizens of the United States celebrate thanksgiving this Thursday, the festivities are all but unknown in the rest of the world.
As my wife Lisa is American, it should be no surprise to anyone that my thoughts at this time of year tend to turn to thankfulness.
- I am cheerful that the MS lesions in my brain and spine are currently inactive and that there are no signs of current inflammation.
- I am cheerful that Lisa is my wife She is the love of my life, my lover, confidant, and my very best friend.
I am cheerful to have enjoyed a career as a writer, about which I have a passion. Even today, when MS prevents me from going out to work, I am cheerful that I have the ability to write at home and to be able to use the internet as my method of publication.- I am cheerful for the support of members of the online community who continue to read my MS, Health and Disability blog at 50shadesofsun.com as well as for the owners and fellow writers who contribute to the various disease/disorder-specific news and information websites run by BioNews Services.
- I am cheerful that Lisa and I moved to, and now live in, the sunny south of Spain.
- I am cheerful for the ease with which we can communicate over such long distances in today’s computerized world. With friends and family in the UK and USA, as well as fellow writers and other contacts throughout the world, it is as though they are all just a couple of miles away.
- I am cheerful for ease of travel and for the assistance available to people with disabilities when travelling by plane, ship, train, coach, bus, or taxi. Added to that, I am cheerful to have my folding electric wheelchair that makes such a huge difference to my life.
- I am cheerful that I have been able to fulfil dreams that were once beyond the remotest of possibilities, such as sailing across the Atlantic, staying in New York City at Christmas-time, going to Hawaii, and visiting the Arctic circle. I am cheerful, too, that the opportunity remains to fulfil more dreams in the future.
- I am cheerful to enjoy entertainment in whatever form it takes: films, TV, theatre, sport, music, ebooks, games or puzzles.
- Finally, I am cheerful that I am alive and able to do what I can, when I can.
I may have MS but it does not have me, I refuse to let it!
Stay cheerful.
50shadesofsun.com is the personal website of Ian Franks, who is Managing Editor (columns division) of BioNews Services. BioNews is owner of 50 disease/didorder-specific news and information websites – including MS News Today. Ian has enjoyed a successful career as a journalist, from reporter to editor, in the print media. During that career he gained a Journalist of the Year award in his native UK. He was diagnosed with MS in 2002 but continued working until mobility problems forced him to retire early in late 2006. He now lives in the south of Spain. Besides MS, Ian is also able to write about both epilepsy and cardiovascular matters from a patient’s perspective and is a keen advocate on mobility and accessibility issues.
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