Pun Intended

I don’t see a lesion to laugh about this, but when it comes to Multiple Sclerosis, we are given one choice at diagnosis:

Laugh or cry.

Hi there, I’m Catherine Weston and I’ve been living with Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis (RRMS) for nearly a decade now. With 10 years of experience, you could say I’m officially an expert in MS.

Psych!

MS patients are like snowflakes; no two are even remotely alike when it comes to symptoms and life experiences, not even close.

I have attempted to migrate my Instagram writings to a blog now at least 10 times over the last 10 years. Having written blogs for the MS society, it comes naturally to me to want to share about symptoms and experiences, no matter how embarrassing they can be (I’m looking at you, consistently wetting my pants because of urgency).

Per my intro, I have chosen to laugh since my diagnosis. Nothing has come easy, in fact it gets harder every day that I age, but I continue to push myself to whatever limit I have that day because I refuse to succumb to the unfortunate hand that life has dealt me. At the end of the day, yes, I do suffer, but more importantly, I find the JOY in every experience that I have the privilege to have!

Through the course of this blog, I hope to share my experiences, knowledge, sense of humor and infectious joy with my readers to not only educate those who do not know about MS, but most importantly to let them know that

YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

I have been put on 3 different disease modifying therapies (DMTs) in roughly 10 years.

I have been partially blind since August of 2023.

For my birthday week (also August 2023), I spent it in an infusion chair receiving IV drip Solu Medrol steroids.

My spine is a massacre of tight muscles (but fortunately, no lesions).

I was diagnosed within 2 days at age 20 because at that time, I had over 30 lesions.

Even with all of the above, I have found a passion and a deep love for life. Almost daily, I still manage to:

Remain physically active
Eat healthfully and mindfully
Manage bad pain days
Remove stigma from the things that help, or simply bring me joy
Offer support to others in the community who need it
Maintain a positive mindset, even when in the deep throws of depression

If anything in the above resonates with you, then this blog is absolutely for you! I aspire to share some of the things I’ve learned to help others, whether newly diagnosed, a veteran of Chronic Disease, someone with loved ones suffering from chronic illness, or just someone looking for an uplifting blog full of knowledge bombs to get them through their day.

So, reader, I hope to see you return here as this website continues to grow, because all that will come of it is that maybe you will simply become

Chronically Joyful.