ACCIDENT and Emergency nurse Joanna Stirling-Aird cuddles 16-month-old Sophia and beams: “She is extremely laid back and always smiling – just like her father.”
But for a time the family had little to smile about. A week before Joanna and husband Archie, 35, married she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.
The 33-year-old nurse had watched her mother battle the condition for 25 years, leaving her wheelchair bound. It claimed her life in 2010.
Joanna, who soon after marrying discovered she was pregnant, had to wait until her baby was born before she could begin treatment.
She recalls: “Mentally this was a dark time. I realised how my mum must have felt when she was diagnosed. I was suddenly responsible for this little person that I had all this love for – but what if I wasn’t going to be able to be here to look after her?”
Joanna is sharing her experience to raise awareness of the condition and to encourage donations to fund research. Earlier this month Archie completed a 100-mile sponsored walk in 47 hours and five minutes for the Multiple Sclerosis Society.
Joanna’s first symptoms – eye discomfort and problems with her vision – appeared when she was 26 but doctors couldn’t pinpoint the cause. They recurred after her mum’s death, she was scanned and monitored and eventually MS was diagnosed.
Joanna, who works at a Glasgow hospital, says: “A week before our wedding in 2015 at Dunblane Cathedral I was given the formal diagnosis and, even though I knew what was coming, it was still terrifying.”
Doctors reassured her that there were new treatments to slow down the progression of the condition.
When she became pregnant she knew she just had to get on with life. But after Sophia arrived she found herself struggling with sleepless nights and painful treatment.
Joanna was just getting back on her feet and preparing to return to work when she suffered a serious relapse, losing the vision in her left eye, her balance and suffering severe pain and weakness.
She confesses: “I didn’t know if I would be able to nurse again.”
But with treatment, the support of her MS team and health visitors she bounced back. She now uses yoga and ballet to build her strength and improve her balance.
She is also back to working shifts in her A&E department. She says: “I see patients struggle with life-changing challenges and this highlights to me that you must just enjoy your health when you have it and live every moment to the full.
“My only regrets are that my mother did not have the possibilities of treatment that I have and that she never had the chance to meet my wonderful husband and baby.
“We will fight MS as best we can.
“We will work together building happy memories in a life filled with love and laughter and just get on with things – and maybe have another baby!”
mssociety.org.uk helpline: 0808 800 8000; justgiving.com/fundraising/ad-stirling-aird
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