This is a good explanation of a day in the life of MS...


Last September, Elizabeth Murphy took a seat in a diagnostic clinic, ready for a Multiple Sclerosis (MS) test. Just before the test began, she asked the lab technician to take a photo of her holding up a spoon. “I felt like a bit of a dork when I asked her to take the picture,” Elizabeth blogged that evening. “However, she thought it was wonderful what my co-workers/friends did for me today.”

That’s because this wasn’t just any spoon she had carried with her from her home in St. Catharines to the Toronto clinic. This was one of more than two dozen hand-decorated spoons fashioned into an inspirational bouquet by Elizabeth’s colleagues as a show of care and support. Why spoons? They’re a metaphor for units of energy, drawn from a story told by Christine Miserandino, a woman with Lupus who attempts to describe the debilitating disease to a friend. “It’s a perfect description of what MS feels like,” Elizabeth explains.
In the story, Christine hands her friend a dozen spoons and asks her to describe a typical day. Start with a shower? Lose a spoon. Get dressed? Lose a spoon. Stand up on the bus? Lose a spoon. “I explained to her that she needed to plan the rest of her day wisely,” Christine’s story goes. “Since when your spoons are gone, they are gone. Sometimes you can borrow against tomorrow's spoons, but just think how hard tomorrow will be with fewer spoons.”

Elizabeth shared “The Spoon Theory” with her co-workers several months before her scheduled test. On the morning of her departure, they surprised her with the colourful bouquet—bunches of symbolic energy. “This is one of the most thoughtful, loving and amazing things anyone has ever done for me,” Elizabeth says. “I will cherish my gift from my wonderful, compassionate co-workers forever.”