MS Has Talent

If Multiple Sclerosis entered ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ (BGT), it would have a good shot at reaching the final. You see, Multiple Sclerosis has multiple talents and, although many of these talents remain invisible, the effect they have on the body is awe-inspiring.

If MS entered the BGT stage I imagine it would be one of those contestants who comes with a sob-story; complete with some soppy boy-band ballad to accompany its list of woes. ‘Nobody likes me, nobody wants me, the medicine is trying to poison me and the doctors keep trying to FIND A CURE!! …’ The judges would be crying silent tears of sympathy and the audience would be on their feet and cheering before they’d even been treated to a preview of MS’s talents. Yes, I imagine MS would do rather well.

The trouble is, the more talent MS has, the less talent its ‘subject’, i.e. me, has.

The Talents:

MS is an acrobat – therefore, I am not. Whilst my MS is having a field day performing roly-polies, one-handed cartwheels and backward flips in my frazzled nervous system, I am busy performing death-defying displays of the foot-drop flop, off-beat renditions of The Robot, and my favourite, the elegantly executed triple-spin stumble into the wall.

MS is an adept puppeteer and ventriloquist – it can pull those strings like no-one else. Want to perform an Irish jig? No problem, MS can make your limbs do things you never dreamed you could do. You’ll have those jerky movements and involuntary twitches down to a fine art before you know it. It can also yank on the strings controlling your speech. Yeppity yep, MS will soon have you slurring along to ‘Seven slick slimy snakes slowly sliding southward‘, like a pro.

MS is a slap-stick genius, excelling at Stand-Up, or rather Sit-Down, comedy. MS can make you drop things and fall over just like a lovable clown – without ever having to employ the use of a banana skin. MS is a pretty good Magician to boot. It can play tricks with your vision, your bladder, your emotions, your – everything. Oh, do its talents know no bounds?!

Well, for now MS can play the fame game, enjoy the standing ovation and taste the ticker tape falling from the fly space – it won’t last, there are plenty of red buzzers just waiting to buzz the socks off that talented, troublesome toe-rag.