An MS Patient’s Story – Swept off my feet by the smart, sweet, gentle, handy man

For years after my marriage ended, I dated only sporadically. It’s not that I didn’t want to develop a serious relationship. I just couldn’t seem to make one stick. 

As the post-divorce years progressed, so, too, did my disability from multiple sclerosis. I “graduated” from needing no mobility aids except ankle supports for running, to requiring a cane for all but the shortest walking distances. I had long since given up running.

As MS continued to take its incessant toll, I began to think I might remain single for the rest of my life. I am confident in myself, and believed that if someone would just get to know me, he’d look past the disability. I just didn’t have faith I’d be able to find someone who would do that.

If I’m really honest with myself, and the tables were turned, I am not sure that I would have taken on the male equivalent of me, either.

In a last-ditch attempt to resurrect my love life, I plunged into on-line dating in the summer of 2008. My carefully worded profile mentioned that I could no longer participate in athletics, but that I would cheer on someone who did.

One day as I was perusing male profiles, I ran across a photo of a man with a friendly, attractive face. He was holding a hammer, perched on what appeared to be the support beams for a deck he was building. Behind him was a huge body of water.

I sent him a quick e-mail to introduce myself. He had access to my photos and profile, and responded by asking why I could no longer participate in sports.

Good, honest question, I thought. I explained that I had MS, which increasingly limited my physical pursuits, but that I was still a vital human being, leading a full life.

I never thought I’d hear from him again.

You can guess the rest. This strapping man perched on the deck frame was John, the name I’ve dropped in many of these columns, the John who would build three years later a beach “chariot,” which he would pull, to give me unencumbered access to the sandy shoreline.

Of course, that was all in the future. John, as he introduced himself, told me he had gone to the National MS Society’s website to learn more. And he wanted to meet me.

That first tentative face-to-face took place in downtown Olympia, where we met for lunch. Some three and a half years later, John is still very much in my life.

As the disease progresses, so, too, do John’s ideas for helping me stay active, notably with kayaking, gardening, and swimming.

Besides the beach chariot — which John, with his creative, mechanical mind, designed — his first big project was installing an elaborate hoist system in my back garage, nicknamed the boat barn. The hoist allows me to easily load and unload my 17-foot kayak onto and off of my car all by myself.

With his woodworking talents, John built a sturdy cedar railing for the stoop outside my back door. He installed attractive and ever-so-practical grab bars in my shower, as well as a second railing down my stairs, which he sanded and stained to match the original.

He found on Craigslist not one, but two, used scooters in excellent condition so that I now have a scooter in every port: my garden, his home on south Puget Sound, and the new one he and I picked out together for the Lower Columbia College campus, where I work.

Most recently, John has gotten me back in the pool, accompanying me so that I have no excuse not to get in the water.