“Dear old friend who I am enormously fond of and barely know,” was how Kate Milliken started her response. The world of multiple sclerosis (MS) is like that. We all have our connection to the disease, to our former lives, to our new circumstances, and we have connections to one another. For me and for many in the MS world, Kate has been one of those connections.
Kate Milliken’s Done ‘Loads of Work’ for the MS Community
Some of you will know her from her work on the MS Learn Online video series for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. She’s done loads of work for the MS community by using the talents of her “pre-MS” career as a TV and video producer and on-camera correspondent. One of her projects was the Herculean work of the social support platform MyCounterpane, which she has since suspended. Never one to sit by and just see what the world brings to her doorstep, Kate reaches out into the world and pulls in that which might be useful to her and to those who also live with multiple sclerosis. One such plunge of the hand found the kernel of an idea which she planted, tended, and saw grow into a beautiful flower.
New Film Doesn’t Shy Away From the Difficult Parts
Just released, the short (30-minute) film MS Beneath the Surface, of which Kate is a producer, was the reason I sent off that email to my “old friend whom I’ve not met.” After watching the film, I wanted to let her know that I appreciated not only the work she’d done, but the way in which she’d done it. A video or film can only ever tell part of a story. All too often, the focus is only on a good side or a bad side of a tale. My note to Kate was to say thank you for telling these stories the way she did. For not shying away from the difficult parts of the stories. And for leaving me wanting to know more about the people she’d profiled. The best part is that we know there is more to those people. RELATED: See more of Kate Milliken on TippiTV: Multiple Sclerosis
Some Days, MS Does ‘Have Me’
All too often, we are shown one dimension of a person living with multiple sclerosis. It can feel like an affront to my sensibilities, when a “butterfly farts and unicorn piss” take on living with the disease is presented to me. I’m not saying that I need to bathe in the doom and gloom of the dark parts of multiple sclerosis. But when someone tries to tell me that life doesn’t need to change or that everything is or will be as good as it was before — well, they lost me at “MS doesn’t have me.” Because some days, MS does “have me,” and if I don’t acknowledge that, then I’m not being true to my life and my experiences in this whole big life upon which I have had MS thrust.
A Setback Is Just a New Starting Line
The people profiled in MS Beneath the Surface treat those difficult times the same way I have learned to deal with them. I use them as a place from which to start. A setback is just a new starting line. I’m not happy that the line has moved, but we can either start again, or we can sit down and watch the rest of the world get on with their lives. That’s what I liked most about this film. It shows how a group of people with MS started over (and continue to start over). It shows that there is more life ahead for all of us. And it is the wanting to know more about her film’s subjects that reminds me that I and we are all more than what MS has done to us. We are what we do with ourselves once we move past that new starting line. Wishing you and your family the best of health. Cheers, Trevis
