Running these MS Clubhouse talks is a huge step for me on my MS journey. From not wanting to talk to anyone with MS when I was first diagnosed, I am now connected with so many people from all over the world who understand what I am going through and who I can support on their journeys too. 

There are also other members of the MS community running clubs with different focuses such as Multiple Sclerosis Mamas, MS Thrivers and MS Warriors Living Well.

Finally, I now have a Yes, I Have MS Club that you can join on Clubhouse and you will get notified whenever a room begins. Just join Clubhouse and search for ‘Yes I Have MS!’.

The Miso Aubergine with Tofu, Sesame and Chilli dressing is now a firm vegan favourite and has made it into my regular routine of recipes. I also add green beans to the tray as well as spring greens just to add an extra veggie boost. Plus, I like to sprinkle some peanuts over at the end to give it a bit of crunch.

Prep: 10 minutes

Cook: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

2 aubergines, halved lengthways

250g firm organic tofu, cut into 1.5cm slices

75g miso paste

2 tablespoons sesame oil

2.5cm ginger, grated

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

100g spring greens, thickly sliced

DRESSING

1 red chilli, finely chopped

2cm ginger, grated

2 cloves of garlic, grated

2 limes, zest of 1 and juice of both

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons sesame oil

3 spring onions, thinly sliced

TO SERVE

30g sesame seeds

Rice

1. Preheat the oven to 180℃ fan/ 200℃/ Gas 6. Cut deep cross-hatches into each aubergine half, then transfer to a roasting tin along with the tofu.
2. Mix the miso paste with the sesame oil, ginger and garlic, then rub this into everything in the roasting tin. Transfer to the oven and roast for 25 minutes. Then, rub the spring greens with 1 tablespoon of sesame oil, add them to the tin and cook for a further 20 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, mix the chilli, ginger, garlic, lime zest and juice, soy sauce, sesame oil and spring onions together. Tip this dressing over the aubergine and tofu as soon as it comes out of the oven, then scatter with the sesame seeds. Serve hot with rice alongside.

Let me know if you try the recipe and how you like it!

Find more vegan recipe inspiration in my Veganuary 2021 Roundup.

Ingredients:

4 red peppers

2 garlic cloves, finely sliced

4 medium tomatoes, finely chopped

2 tablespoons capers, rinsed and drained

30g pitted black olives, roughly chopped

2 tablespoons za’atar (or substitute 1 ½ tbsp dried oregano plus ½ tsp sumac)

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 200℃/ fan 180℃/ Gas 6
2. Cut the peppers in half, trim off any white pith and place them in a baking tray.
3. Mix the garlic, tomatoes, capers, olives, za’atar, vinegar and extra virgin olive oil together. Season with 1 teaspoon salt and ½ teaspoon pepper.
4. Stuff each pepper with a few spoonfuls of the filling, then cover the tray with foil.
5. Bake for 20 minutes, then remove the foil and bake for another 20-30 minutes, until the peppers are completely soft and a little darkened around the edges.

Let me know if you try the recipe and how you like it!

Find more vegan recipe inspiration in my Veganuary 2021 Roundup.

I made Noor’s Black Lime Tofu a couple of times during my Veganuary experiment and it is my favourite recipe that I made during the whole of Veganuary! The simple pickled red onion is a flavour game changer and I’m now a little bit obsessed with pickling! I served the Black Lime Tofu with Thai sticky rice for an extra decadent twist and a sprinkling of peanuts to add a little bit more crunch.

Ingredients:

1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

2 tsp caster sugar

1 small red onion, thinly sliced into rounds on a mandolin, if you have one, or by hand (60g)

600ml sunflower oil, for deep-frying

2 blocks extra-firm tofu (560g), patted dry and cut into 2cm cubes

2 tbsp cornflour

2 onions (300g), roughly chopped

6 garlic cloves, roughly chopped

60ml olive oil

2 tsp cumin seed, roughly crushed in a pestle and mortar

2-3 dried black limes, blitzed in a spice grinder to get 2 tbsp (10g- use a food processor if you don’t have a grinder, and pass through a sieve)(if you can’t get any black limes, subsitute with 1tbsp lime juice and 1 tbsp lime zest)

2 tbsp tomato paste

20g parsley, roughly chopped

250g baby spinach

Salt and black pepper

1. Put the vinegar, 1 teaspoon of sugar, the red onion and ¼ teaspoon of salt into a small bowl and mix well to combine. Set aside to pickle while you continue with the rest.
2. Heat the sunflower oil in a medium high-sided sauté pan on a medium-high heat. Toss the tofu in a bowl with the cornflour until well coated. Once hot, fry the tofu (in two batches) until crispy and lightly browned, about 6 minutes per batch, then transfer to a plate linef with kitchen paper and set aside.
3. While the tofu is frying, prepare the sauce. Put the onions and garlic into a food processor and pulse a few times until very finely minced but not pureéd. Put the olive oil into a large sauté pan on a medium-high heat. Add the onion mixture and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Add the cumin, black limes (or regular lime zest and juice) and tomato paste and cook for 1 minute more.  Add 400ml of water, the remaining 1 teaspoon of sugar, 1 ¼ teaspoon of salt and generous grind of black pepper. Bring to a simmer and cook for 6 minutes, stirring occasionally, until thick and rich. Add the crispy tofu, parsley, and another grind of black pepper and stir to coat. Add the spinach in increments, stirring until just wilted, about 3 minutes.
4. 4. To serve, transfer the mixture to a shallow serving platter and top with the pickled red ion (or serve straight from the pan).

Let me know if you try the recipe and how you like it!

Find more vegan recipe inspiration in my Veganuary 2021 Roundup.

Firstly, I have become more mindful of my carbon footprint and the impact that it has on the planet. I wanted to do Veganuary so that I would be motivated to search for and try out delicious vegan recipes that I can incorporate into my normal cooking routine. Just by not consuming meat and eating plant-based products instead can have a hugely positive impact on the environment as well as our health. 

Secondly, I was intrigued to see whether following a vegan diet would have an impact on my MS symptoms. I have previously tried the Overcoming MS diet which is basically veganism but with seafood and replaces all oils with linseed oil. For me, it was too restrictive and made me miserable, so after 6 weeks of following it I stopped. However, according to medical research, vegans weigh less than omnivores and suffer less chronic diseases, so I thought it was worth giving it a try to gradually move towards a more plant-based diet. 

For about the first 10 days, I ate whatever I wanted and got really excited when I found out that lots of foods were vegan (ginger nut biscuits, certain flavours of crisps, Green and Blacks dark chocolate with ginger…the list goes on!). At first, I ate whatever I wanted and didn’t think about the calories, but about half way through January I decided to try to lose weight as well as following a vegan diet.

This meant that not only did I start exercising, but I also began to watch what I was eating and so stopped snacking on all the ginger nut biscuits just because I could!

I mainly used 3 cookbooks:

Middle Eastern cuisine is great for vegans as traditionally it doesn’t include much dairy and her recipe for hummus is the best that I’ve ever made (I add a teaspoon of Ras El Hanout into mine to spice it up!). I also enjoyed her Burnt Aubergine with Tahini recipe. Both dips served with pitta and veggies made a delicious vegan lunch!

One night for dinner though I cooked her Roasted Red Peppers With Olive and Capers and served it with couscous and it was so tasty!

During Veganuary I made The Ultimate Traybake Ragu which was so rich, it was incredible that it didn’t include any cheese or meat, as well as the warming Portobello Steaks and Butter Bean Mash.

During Veganuary I cooked many different recipes from this book…Rukmini Iyer is my new food hero! From the Quick Thai Okra with Oyster Mushrooms and Coconut Milk to the Simple All-In-One Daal with Roasted Shallots, Coriander, Pomegranate and Cashews and Oven Baked Ratatouille, I now have a list of new firm favourites that have been repeated since finishing Veganuary.

However, I did find some pre-packaged vegan products that I really liked and that I could turn into a really quick and healthy meal on the days when I wasn’t feeling so creative in the kitchen.

Vivera Southern Fried Plant Nuggets

These are tasty vegan nuggets essentially, but they are relatively low in calories and are super tasty. Served with a salad, some sweet potato wedges and homemade low-fat tzatziki, I would now choose eating these over meat equivalents any day.

Naked Glory BBQ Tenderstrips

The same goes for the Naked Glory BBQ Tenderstrips. They come frozen which is really convenient and means no waste. They cook from frozen in a frying pan in 10 minutes and can be added to a salad, a sandwich or used in fajita-esque meals. Again, I really like them and they have become my healthy kebab replacement when I get that dirty craving on a Friday night!

Sainsbury’s Love Your Veg! Red Pepper & Chipotle Falafels

These falafels are really tasty and not dry at all. I used them as a meatball replacement and rustled up a 10 minute-take on a tagine using chopped apricots, sultanas, red onion, harissa and a can of chopped tomatoes with a teaspoon of sugar. Cooked down for 10 minutes or until sticky, served with couscous, this was a super quick and healthy evening meal. 

1.I feel really proud of myself for committing to something and seeing it through.

2. I now have an amazing list of new vegan recipes that I have continued to incorporate into my normal cooking routine.

3. My breakfasts and lunches are all vegetarian or vegan and at least 2 of my evening meals each week are vegan.

4. I lost half a stone by the end of Veganuary. However, I would like to caveat this by saying that I started to exercise and do HIIT sessions half way through January that had a big impact on my weight loss. I also really started to watch what I was eating half way through the month. So, I wouldn’t attribute the weight loss just to following a vegan diet, I would attribute it to being more mindful of what I was eating and how I was moving as a whole.

I spent my first summer at university living in Valencia in Spain and working as a tour guide and pub crawl leader. By day, I would share the culture and beauty of historic Valencia with tourists through walking tours and tapas tours. By night, I helped them get very drunk in the best bars and nightclubs that the city has to offer– shoutout to Radio City in El Carmen!

Not only did I get to revisit lots of incredible sites that most people only see once in a lifetime, such as Machu Picchu and Iguazu Falls, I would also get weeks of “downtime” between tours. Used this downtime to explore new places by myself. Some of the highlights of my downtime were spending 3 weeks living on the Galapagos Islands, relaxing in the paradise that is Ilha Grande in Brazil and exploring the ancient cultures of Northern Peru. It was an incredible year and I loved it!

Of course, I had a few concerns about tour leading with MS: would my symptoms be ok? Would I get enough sleep? Would I be able to manage my stress levels? But I really had nothing to worry about. 

What I realised, as I had done during my summer of travelling in Malaysia after my first year of teaching, doing what I love and being happy helps to minimise my MS symptoms. I love tour leading and I relish the challenges that it brings: thinking on my feet when the bus breaks down or there’s a strike or road blockade (welcome to Bolivia!); helping my passengers learn about each country and making special efforts to share hidden gems and experiences with them. To many people, this would be their worst nightmare, but for me, it is what feeds my soul. 

As such, I barely experienced any of my MS symptoms during the entire 3 months that I was away, but that’s not to say that I wasn’t ill for the whole 3 months…it is South America after all!

Now, it was this that made me pretty sick which came as a complete surprise as I had lived and travelled at altitude many times before. For the first time ever I experienced not being able to sleep because, as my breathing slowed down, there wasn’t enough oxygen in the air. Every time I would start to nod off my body would wake me up!

I also spent the whole of the next day vomiting my way across the altiplano which was not so fun! None of this was related to my MS though and it was all bearable and easily treated with coca tea, plenty of water and some electrolyte drinks.

The Andean Flamingo finished in the Chilean capital, Santiago. I love Santiago as it is extremely cosmopolitan and I even managed to find Korean food which made me very happy! 

I also wanted to climb the Villarica volcano which is 2,847m high. This was a challenge that I had set for myself to see if I could still push myself physically, even with MS. I’m not going to lie, it was absolutely one of the most terrifying things I have ever done in my life! Not because of my MS, but because I am petrified of heights and we climbed up most of the volcano in the snow with wind howling around us!

Reaching the top felt absolutely incredible though and the views were breathtaking. We even got to slide back down the volcano on little trays, controlling our speed with an ice pick (!). I felt so proud to have climbed to the top as not everyone in our group made it. In fact, it was an all female group that reached the top which felt pretty special. 

Finally, I arrived in Buenos Aires with a few days to enjoy the city and catch up with old friends before beginning the next tour.

We started in the Argentinian capital, Buenos Aires, and indulged in lots of steaks, before flying to Salta in the extreme North-West of Argentina. Here we had the pleasure of indulging in Argentinian wine during a day trip to the vineyards of Cafayate after winding through the Quebrada de las Conchas.

Our journey continued across the Andes and across the border into Chile and the town of San Pedro de Atacama before we traversed the stunning landscape of the Bolivian altiplano and the Salar de Uyuni. Thankfully this time I wasn’t ill!

The rest of the tour was pretty much the reverse of the Andean Flamingo and took in La Paz, Lake Titicaca, Cusco, Machu Picchu and finished in Lima. 

It was even more empowering and reassured me that I had made the right decision to quit teaching. Tour leading with MS made no difference to my ability to lead successfully. In fact, because I was doing something that I loved and that brought me joy, my symptoms were almost non-existent. I was running around cities, walking lots every day and spending quite a lot of time at altitude and my body was strong. My experience of tour leading with MS has inspired me to continue to create a life and job that I love, because being happy and minimising stress levels helps me to manage my MS.

Let me know in the comments below.

I am still freelance, but have developed close working relationships with other agencies and freelancers who I work with on a regular basis. I am even branching into the Chinese markets to support Chinese businesses to reach an international audience! I’m really excited about this as it means that I can put my Chinese degree to good use and my understanding of the different cultural nuances gives me an edge.

Alongside the digital marketing business, my fiancé and I also launched a Destination Management Company (DMC) for South-West England called Velius Travel. Velius Travel delivers private, bespoke, luxury travel for visitors to the UK in multiple languages. Having welcomed our first Russian group to Bristol in January 2020, everything was looking very promising. However, the minor issue of a global pandemic put somewhat of a spanner in the works! 

In the meantime, we are in the process of pivoting and setting up an online shop instead, so I’ll keep you updated on how all that goes!

As you can see, I am generally pretty busy and spin lots of different plates and I do love it! However, it isn’t always sunshine and rainbows running a business for anyone, let alone someone who is living with MS. So I want to share with you what I think are the pros and cons of running a business (or businesses!) while living with MS.

Very early on in setting up my business, I understood that working full-time was not going to work for me. Working full-time hours doesn’t give me the flexibility to work when I feel good and take breaks or a day off when my symptoms are flaring. It ultimately doesn’t give me the time to take care of myself which is essential to managing my MS.

So, my working day routine looks something like this:

6:50 am Wake up

7:20am Go for a walk (aiming for approx. 10,000 steps) with a flask of coffee

9am Shower and breakfast

10am Start work

1pm Lunch break (this can range from anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours depending on my tiredness and concentration levels)

3pm – 6pm Work

Obviously, this varies, but it gives you a pretty good idea of what a working day looks like for me. 

The important thing to know is that this isn’t what all of my Monday to Fridays look like. Some days I don’t work and other days I work for a few hours. It’s my choice.

Obviously I have deadlines and tasks to complete for clients, but by communicating clearly and managing deadline expectations, I continue to maintain excellent working relationships with them and give my body the rest that it needs.

Now, running my own business, I have created a flexible work environment that allows for rest. I have learned how to manage my workload to minimise stress. All of this means that, not only do I generally have much less severe MS symptoms than when I was teaching, but also when my symptoms do get worse, I can listen to my body and give it the rest that it needs.

In terms of managing my MS it is definitely a pro as it means that I can negotiate deadlines with clients and that I am fully responsible for creating a project timetable that works for both parties. Obviously, if I fail to meet deadlines that would be a problem (I don’t!), but what it does allow is for me to be the mistress of my own destiny. Once the timetable has been agreed, I then get to decide when I complete the work- on which days and at which time. 

On a professional level, not having anyone telling you what to do can be a con if you let it, as it means that responsibility for completing any task lies solely with you. There is (probably!) nobody shouting at you to do something, particularly if it is to do with your own business development. So learning how to be self-motivated and have integrity to myself was a sharp learning curve when starting my businesses. 

It does take time to work this out and internalise it, but when you do, magic happens.

I now earn 50% more than when I was a teacher and probably work 50% less hours. I intend to increase the amount that I am earning over the next few years with the development of the online shop and (hopefully!) the return of the travel business too. However, I don’t intend to hugely increase the amount of hours that I work. Again, I’ll keep you posted on how it goes, but that is the possibility that I am creating for my life!

I know that this is one of the biggest reasons for staying in employment and I completely understand why. Equally, I have experienced a huge reduction in the severity of my symptoms since leaving employment. To be honest, I had no time off when I was teaching due to MS, it was always the odd day here and there with the flu! So not having sick pay never really factored into my decision of setting up my own business.

Moreover, planning for it and putting contingency plans in place can minimise the risk to your business if you do have a relapse or your symptoms flare.

As Allen F. Morgenstern said, “work smarter, not harder.” 

Personally, I don’t just want to build a team because of having MS. I want to build a team so that I can focus on developing a business that can grow. By not having me at the centre of the business I am creating the possibility of growth, being financially independent and starting a family while still being a contribution to my clients and future customers and suppliers. This  is something that I’m really passionate and  excited about and I can’t wait to make it happen in 2021!

Let me know by leaving a comment below!

Now, I don’t feel obese and I don’t think I look obese– I’m still pretty ok with the way I look and I still feel attractive. However, the fact of the matter is that my BMI is currently 30.6 and that has tipped me over from being overweight to obese according to the NHS. This is not the MS body that I want, or have had in the past.

Between January and March 2020 I lost a stone and was feeling pretty good. I could fit back into my clothes comfortably and I felt like I was making good headway towards my goal of losing 2 stone in total.

And then the Covid pandemic hit. 

Everything was going really well until May 2020 when I am 95% sure that I had Covid (it was when they were only testing if you went into hospital). I was in bed for about 10 days and it took me 7 weeks to get my energy levels back to normal. During that time I couldn’t exercise and completely gave up on eating well.  

Eating and drinking whatever I wanted felt like the only thing that I had control over. This made it very easy to justify eating and drinking EVERYTHING. It also didn’t help that a very lovely lady called Kitty who lives on my street made cakes every other day for the entire street during lockdown– delicious but deadly to a diet! Not only did I put on the stone that I’d lost at the beginning of the year, I also put on another one.

I’ve realised that my problem with losing weight is that I’m actually happy with how I look which has meant that motivating myself to lose weight purely out of vanity hasn’t worked (and nor should it). What I’ve been missing is really getting clear on why I want to lose weight.

Through a recent coaching seminar that I’ve taken part in, I’ve created the possibility of being healthy, not skinny. I don’t really care how much I weigh, but I do care about being healthy. The reality is that the amount that I weigh right now is not healthy. I want to be healthy to manage my MS, I want to be healthy to avoid future health problems and I want to be healthy so that my body can nourish a baby in the near future.

Any tips and advice is much appreciated! Please get in touch in the comments below. 

When you sign up you will be asked to complete a series of questionnaires designed to help researchers understand more about the realities of living with MS including physical and mental symptoms and wellbeing. Then, every 6 months you will be invited to complete the same set of questions to monitor and gather data on the progression and management of your MS.

Data captured by the UK MS Register has been used by researchers within Swansea University, across the UK and even in Europe to answer important questions about living with MS in the UK.

Participation is completely voluntary, but I feel that taking part is extremely important for giving researchers the data and insights they need in order to develop a cure for MS and also for health bodies when making decisions about services and treatments that should be made available to those people living with MS. 

Obviously, while these fears are completely understandable, they are also completely unfounded if you are with a kind and compassionate partner. And, to be honest, if they’re not kind and compassionate, then they are definitely not the type of person that you want to spend your life with anyway!

However, the actual reality of dating with MS, especially as an “invisible illness”, did bring up some potentially tricky scenarios such as when to share that I have MS, who do I “have to tell” and being able to explain what the future might look like when I had absolutely no idea myself! 

So, in this blog I want to share what I learned from dating with MS. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin…

For example, not everyone needs to know that I got so drunk on my year abroad that I fell out of bed onto a concrete floor and broke my rib! It’s not a story that I lead with when meeting people, but if you talk to me long enough, it will probably come up in conversation– just like my MS!

Some people prefer to be upfront about their diagnosis from a first date, others prefer to wait before sharing their diagnosis with a potential partner. Whatever you choose to do is perfect.

For me, I never mentioned my diagnosis on first dates. It wasn’t really a conscious decision and if anyone had explicitly asked me, “Do you have a long-term illness?”, I would have said, “yes”. However, as that isn’t the best first date chat, unsurprisingly it never came up in conversation! 

For a long time I didn’t want to be defined by my MS and so, for me, I didn’t think that it was the most interesting or important thing that anyone needed to know about me and so I didn’t share my diagnosis when I first met people. 

I definitely agonized internally over this choice when dating because I wasn’t sure whether I was being deceitful or whether it was wrong, but there really is no right or wrong to it. I was still trying to come to terms with the MS diagnosis myself and what it might mean for my life, let alone trying to explain it to a potential partner. So being kind to myself and giving myself time and space to work out whether the person I was dating merited me being vulnerable and sharing my diagnosis with them was the best decision for me. 

I had been so worried that he wouldn’t be able to handle the uncertainty of my MS (mainly because I still couldn’t handle it) that I’d never even stopped to consider that everyone’s future is uncertain. It’s not something that human beings like to think about as we love having control, but the truth is that none of us have control and everything in life is uncertain. This can seem overwhelming, but it is also liberating and if I had continued to date other people, I think that this would have really helped me to be more confident when sharing my diagnosis.

My fiancé Jon is the best man on the planet. FACT. You might have a wonderful partner, I’m not denying it, but he is the absolute BEST (I’m happy to argue this, just leave me a message in the comments ;p).

He doesn’t love me in spite of my MS, he loves me for who I am completely and that includes my MS. He is my champion and my cheerleader. He tucks me up in bed when I’m tired, and blows on me to cool me down when I’m flushing. He also holds me to account when we work together on our businesses and calls me out when I know I’m being a bit pathetic. 

He was there when I stood up in front of 200 people at my Landmark Advanced Course graduation and declared that I am more than my MS. Having spent 3 days fully focused on self-development sitting in a conference hall for 12 hours having only slept about 5 hours each night, I felt amazing and powerful because I had been more interested in the work that I was doing than in my symptoms or fears surrounding MS. I realised that if I’d been able to do that for 3 days, then I could do that in my normal life as well and that was how I intended to live my life from now on.

When I sat back down, Jon turned to me and said that he was so proud to be my fiancé. And that is the person that you want to be with, whether you have MS or not.

Either way, remember, it’s your choice how and when you tell anyone about your diagnosis.