I was annoyed on New Year’s Day as I was due in the office. More annoying was that I suffered a puncture en route to work. I was driving an old Ford Focus at the time. Another time in that car, I remember running out of petrol at the summit of the M62 motorway and managing to coast down the hard shoulder, all the way back home. I was “flying by the seat of my pants“ to coin a phrase of my mum’s.

Elaine rented out her house in Rochdale to move into High Crompton with us and it was half term when we made some time for more wedding planning. Now in her car, we travelled to our chosen venue – a castle in South West Scotland – and were back in time to make my study group in the evening!

Activities that we shared on weekends, were occasional trips to a children’s activity group at the Buddhist Centre. This was called ‘Seedling Sangha’ and run by Debbie Jones. I remember happily singing Buddhist mantras with Molly as we walked around the Northern Quarter of Manchester. “Om mani padme hum!” Perhaps happiness was personal however, as Molly remembers ‘I just had to chant lots of things!’ There were plays, stories and model making. I thought that it was brilliant!

I started to attend a ‘Living Well with Pain and Illness’ course on Wednesday mornings at the Buddhist Centre. This was hosted by local CIC Breathworks and led by order members Ratnaguna and Singhashri. I remember feeling sorry for another lady with MS. She was more advanced with her condition and a wheelchair user. Singhashri now remembers “how open and vulnerable you were with the group, which I was impressed with”. 

My mum took an active role in our lives, helping me immeasurably with childcare. As Elaine and I both worked full time, mum would help out at both ends of the day. Mum also babysat as we celebrated Elaine’s 40th birthday with a trip to the Lakes, but unfortunately we split soon after. 

I took my girls to see a singer called Redd at Rock FM in Preston. This was an event organised by the MS Society and the first one I had attended. Perhaps my relationship to the condition was beginning to soften a little. As Emi happily danced on stage with the singer, Molly remembers, “Emi wanted to the centre of attention as always.” As the flame-haired lady was definitely ‘on our side’, I felt that my condition was being strangely ‘celebrated’ – and that the kids and I were vicarious VIPs.

In the Autumn, whilst working through the ‘Mitra Study Year One’ modules, I chose to support another class at the MBC. The subject matter was ‘The Noble Eightfold Path’ which is an early summary of the path of Buddhist practices leading to liberation from samsara, the painful cycle of rebirth. I met someone, a fellow supporter, with whom I would spend the next few months. She was a practitioner of the “Bowen technique“, an alternative type of physical manipulation which involves gentle rolling motions across the muscles and tendons. Much like our relationship, this therapy didn’t work for me. 

I started on a “raw food“ diet at this time, inspired by her. From what I remember, it was a tasteless experiment and seemed rather pointless. I lost a lot of weight and remember sitting in the library with the girls one weekend and feeling more ill than I ever had in my life.

I was involved with my work friends in Huddersfield at this time. As my confidence and appetite for ‘play’ at work grew, so did my boss’ temper. Mamas & Papas bought me some pedals so I could flex my calf muscles under the desk whilst I worked. I repaid them by entertaining my colleagues by deliberately causing them to squeak in a hushed office. If I slouched in my chair, the Health and Safety woman told me to sit up straight. If it wasn’t for a lovely bunch of mates I met during this time, then I suspect I would have been out of the door sooner. I was granted a disabled parking space even though I didn’t think of myself as disabled.

My medical notes at the time say that ‘there has been little change’ and ‘Things are on an even keel’. They did however, document that I was still suffering with my bladder in the night. I could be up eight times to pee, then drive to Huddersfield to work, then look after my kids. I was taking Solfenacin (a bladder relaxant). Despite this, there was no respite and my sleep disturbance continued. Bladder scans showed that I wasn’t retaining any urine, so I was at a loss.

I was practicing balance exercises in the work toilet before I started. These seemed to help. And I was practicing the ‘3 minute ‘breathing space’ (a short meditation) at my desk whilst my mates had a laugh. I felt like I was ‘in good nick’, but less so when my boss took me into a side room to scream at me for an hour at a time. My friend Kieren recalls, “If this dregs up horrible memories of 2013, try to forget them fast. He especially wasn’t nice, especially when he dragged you into the meeting room for a shouting match”.

My good friend and fellow designer Andy Campbell remembers, “I remember talking about your marathon runs and the contrast with the struggle to walk around Huddersfield. How you’d overheat and have to take a moment, but you never let it phase you. We just carried on talking about whatever it was, usually our crazy women!” I asked my boss for a sofa to have a rest at lunchtime – what a piss taker I was! Again my colleagues laughed but there was a serious and spiritual side that was starting to emerge. I started to lead group meditation sessions up in the attic at work and sometimes I drove up into the hills to meditate. Integrated I wasn’t but enthusiastic, I was.

It was Liz Brown from the MS Society, who told me about a weekly yoga class specially for people with MS. Earlier in the year I had ‘dabbled’ with an Iyengar yoga course, although I called time on it after only a couple of sessions. According to Wikipedia, Iyengar yoga is an “exercise that has an emphasis on detail, precision and alignment”. According to hearsay, it’s hard work – which I’m sure influenced my decision to stop attending the course. Despite this, I’d heard that yoga was good for MS, so I went to the Link Centre in Oldham for a try.

Debbie Bartholemew led the Iyengar yoga class on a Wednesday morning. It fitted in neatly with my schedule as I replaced one event, my ‘Living Well’ course with another. After the class, senior Iyengar teacher Debbie checked in with me, enquiring whether I had previous experience. “Yes” I replied “But only with Iyengar. I didn’t much like it to be honest.”

Molly and Emi sung in a school choir. They performed every Christmas time and this year was no exception as they took up at a Church Hall near the centre of Shaw. I was as ever, keen with the camera, although when crouching to capture the perfect shot, I overbalanced. I was helped back to my feet by one of the mums although I didn’t hear any laughter from my girls because either they didn’t see or they were mortally embarrassed. 

So a year of belly laughs and car capers and only a hint of MS, fondly remembered…