I waited for Elaine Gray to arrive at The Summit pub, on the first night of 2010. Snow was on the ground and it was extremely slippery under foot. We said that we would meet at 8 pm so I got the drinks in and waited anxiously. She was 20 minutes late and a bit flustered. Dressed in a beige, sparkly top and with a storm of blonde hair and makeup, she looked lovely. She talked a lot and seemed quite nervous. But after a few wines, we took a taxi to the pub down the road and the rest of the evening is a bit of a blur!

I suppose we were in our ‘honeymoon period’ –  we were partying in new and exciting places. We took in Harrogate and then the Lake District for Valentine’s Day. Both of these trips were laced with copious amounts of alcohol. Salubrious surroundings of The Majestic caused us to pause on the stairs and reenact a scene from the Titanic. We followed this with a trip to Wetherspoons which was much less posh. I’m the Lakes for Valentine’s Day, she bought a bottle of Champagne and some ‘Love Heart’ sweets. As I slept, she painted my toenails a lovely pink colour. It was a bit embarrassing using the hotel pool after that.

But despite the partying, I still ran. I tried to keep the momentum of my previous marathon training regime (a couple of shorter runs in the week and a longer one on Sunday). I was very proud of my physical fitness. But very unusually, I remember feeling ‘dazzled’ and ‘light headed’ as my body warmed up

When running with Joe, the sensations that I was experiencing would mean that our runs would taper down in their intensity. Our last ‘long one’ was in the Lake District. My memory is of clinging to the steep Skiddaw hillside, unable to move safely as the wind and rain howled around us. “You could hardly see anything. It was a good day out,” Joe fondly remembers!

I went on my first Buddhist retreat on the Spring Bank Holiday weekend at Vajraloka in North Wales. I remember feeling refreshed and nourished as we walked in the sun and gathered attention around our different senses in a mindfulness practice.

Despite the mounting list of problems, I felt like I could still be productive in work. My tingly fingers were starting to affect my typing, which was becoming slower and erroneous so I wore fingerless gloves, hoping that some heat would provide some relief. With hindsight, I was clearly starting with neuropathic pain.

One of Elaine‘s first meetings with all of my girls was on the occasion of her birthday in July. We hosted a barbecue in her back garden where I had been busy patching up her fence to make it pretty and private. The girls played with Elaine’s dog Scamp, as I drank far too much red wine.

Elaine and I organised a day out for ourselves and my girls one Saturday afternoon. Elaine looked after the girls for a while as I went to the opticians. Specsavers provided an urgent referral to the Birch Hill Eye Hospital in Rochdale as they were concerned. As my pupils were routinely dilated for my eye test, I experienced ‘assistance’ for the very first time later that day as I was helped to my seat by an elderly cinema usher.

I was a frequent visitor to the hospital over the next few months. In November, I explained to Dr Afridi that I had lost all vision in my left eye for the past couple of weeks although my vision had since restored. I suppose I was seeking reassurance but instead, he told me, “It’s likely that you have Multiple Sclerosis. Your eye issues are a classic sign”.

As the year neared its end, my sight became progressively worse. My dad remembers picking me up from work one day. I staggered out of the door as he remembers, “I was shocked to see how off balance you were and really struggling to walk”. He decided to book a private appointment to see a consultant neurologist. 

I went to the Alexandra Hospital in Cheadle and was seen by Dr Sussman in late December. He was confident and straightforward and booked me in for an MRI scan. The scans confirmed his suspicions and on the 30th of December 2010 he told me that I had Multiple Sclerosis. Curiously, I remember feeling relief when I phoned Elaine with the news.

A couple of days later, I was hooked up to a drip to deliver intravenous steroids. The infusions were over five days and my memories from that time are fairly vague although I do recall a tired looking Christmas tree in the waiting area, festivities now fading from view.