Run Shorty

Support our challenge to leave MS behind!

With a combined height of less than 10ft Run Shorty are running 150km in May to raise funds for the MS Society.

This is a charity that has supported me in the dark days at the beginning of my MS diagnosis in May 2020 as the world was going slightly bonkers & lockdown was clearly here to stay my brain decided this would be an ideal time to have my first relapse and get rid of all sensation from the middle of my spine down, front and back of my body.

I sat on my own in Warrington General on a ward for a day being poked and prodded before they sent me home to come back the next day for a brain and MRI scan. The results of these took less than the time it took me to walk from the MRI unit back to the ward to come through, where they plonked me in a wheelchair, told me there was “something interesting that needs investigating” in my brain and my spine and wheeled me back while a nurse was putting a port in my arm for contrast to be pumped in. Scary stuff when you are on your own.

What actually showed up was 8 lesions in my brain and 2 lesions in my spine. No neurologists because of covid and just a “we think it’s MS but we aren’t neurologists so we can’t be sure. Go home, someone will ring you”.

All summer I spent with symptoms deteriorating, “MS hug” (which is not as friendly as it sounds), numb legs, my hair started falling out and a constant worry that one day I would wake up unable to move. 

MS Society offered me counselling over Zoom, something which gave me an opportunity to talk through all the jazzy sides of being diagnosed with an autoimmune condition that nobody can tell you the symptoms of and nobody can give you any prognosis for at the grand old age of 37, 6 days before my birthday.

I am very fortunate, my symptoms have not been too bad, if you’ve ever had labyrinthitis - basically that is what I live with every day (if you haven’t had labyrinthitis and you’ve ever been really hungover and tried to tie your shoes up feeling like you are going to face plant the floor - same).

I fall over randomly, I’m very clumsy, my memory is really bad, I often feel like hot water is being poured down the inside of my left arm, I regularly lose the feeling on the skin on my stomach and legs, I have to time buying new footwear to days where I can feel my feet and my newest symptom is a headache that makes my face and the inside of my mouth numb. BUT I can still walk, get out of bed in the morning, I can still see and hear, drive and care for myself. Things lots of people with MS can’t do so I work my backside off to keep hold of them for as long as I can, I know one day things will be worse but for now I will do everything I can to keep what I’ve got.

If you’ve got to the end - well done and if you are able to sponsor my and Eddie in our efforts to raise some money for this cause (and maybe get a medal if we hit the target for that, never won a medal before!)