Welcome to the Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge brought together by WEGO Health – a social network for all health activists.  Again, I am participating in the annual Writer’s Month Challenge in which I will be writing about my health activism and health condition based upon prompts given.

The first prompt reads as given:

Keep Calm and Carry On…Write and create your own “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster.  Try to make it about your own condition!  You can then go to (http://www.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/) and actually make an image to post to your blog.

 

 

I have chosen this particular phrase for my own ‘Keep Calm’ poster as it reflects my life with my condition at this time in my life.  As regular readers of my blog will know that my condition, and a symptom known as spastic paraparesis causes severe stiffness and weakness in my legs; as a result, my legs will often give way and often without any notice.  In addition, the stiffness often causes a lot of pain (when I have feeling in them, that is!) and therefore unable to walk very far.  As these symptoms have been increasing in severity, I am therefore required to use a wheelchair when I am out for long periods of time, or somewhere which requires a lot of walking.

The dizziness, that I experience however, makes it feel very uncomfortable to use the wheelchair due to the motion upsetting my vision and causing severe dizziness and vertigo.  But, as my legs are often too weak and the pain and trembling make it considerably difficult to walk, then I need to disregard the dizziness, and use the wheelchair anyway.

In nearly four weeks, I am going on a cruise, and of course, part of the holiday is going on excursions to some of the cities that we are visiting.  In doing so, it requires a lot of walking and due to the severity of the symptoms, I am going to have to use the wheelchair no matter how bad the dizziness is – and therefore I will have to just ‘Keep Calm and Carry on Wheelin’!