• Autumn
    Health,  Mental Health,  Multiple Sclerosis

    Life after summer

    As the days grow shorter and temperatures colder, it is time to welcome autumn, and what should be a small new lease of life. There is nothing more comforting and relaxing than seeing daylight fade early in the evening. Darkness captures me, telling me it’s time to cuddle up on the couch, book in hand, comfy blanket to warm my feet and a hot cup of coffee to warm my hands. Candlelight shadows perform magic dances on the wall, and I slowly feel energy being restored inside my body. My Dr. Martens boots have been standing idle in a corner of my bedroom, waiting to be walked in again. My winter coat never left the clothes rail in the hallway, covered by a light canvas to keep it from fading.…

  • Mental Health,  MS,  Multiple Sclerosis

    200 days

    "To many, life with MS can seem like a book where letters have been replaced by numbers or where the cover can be too hard or too soft for its content. Because of this, I don’t want them to see what MS can turn into. I refuse to show them that there is no cure, I refuse to give them a reason to give up on me. In my view, it is very much a case of the illness being mine, but the tragedy theirs if I let them."

  • Lifestyle

    13!

    Thirteen years ago today I moved to Ireland. A teenage dream turned reality. Little did I know that 2,5 years later, my life would be transformed in a way I had never imagined. Still, there are no regrets, and where anger could have lived, none is left for two chronic illnesses that could easily have been my downfall. Not one to dwell on issues past, I never allowed myself to live in Oscar Wilde’s famous gutter for a long period. When he said, “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars,” I realise I still am that stargazer, that dreamer, someone who loves Irish history and sociology, nature and literature, photography and psychology. I also still believe in historical and moral justice, a dreamer…

  • Uncategorised

    Kick-Ass Ireland

    Some days I sit still and think about how my life became a dream full-circle. There’s William Butler Yeats, James Joyce and Brendan Behan. Seamus Heaney, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Beckett and George Bernard Shaw. The Lake Isle of Innisfree, Land of Heart’s Desire and Yeats’s grave. Dubliners, Ulysses and Bloomsday. The mountains, lakes, Dublin, Sligo and the Shannon. Brú na Boinne, Corcaigh, Beara, Daingean Uí Chúis, Zú Bhaile Átha Cliath, craic agus ceol. Brian Ború, Michael Collins, Theobald Wolfe Tone and Daniel O’Connell. Seven hundred years of cruelty, yet still able to endure hard times. Writers, dancers, taps, tin whistles and uilleann pipes. Books, almighty libraries and small bookshops selling secrets. Friendships gained, lost and renewed. New alliances forged in foothills and strengthened on mountain tops. “You, the Irish” becoming “Us…

  • MS,  Multiple Sclerosis,  Writing

    Conversations with myself: 2005-2006

    While doing a big administration clean up, I came across some old notebooks. The one that caught my eye started on June 5th 2005, and lists MS, professional, friendship and relationship woes as I was diagnosed just two months prior. It’s very much an interior monologue trying to make sense out of nonsense. For example, I wrote about the last meeting with my dog Wolf right before he was put down. Questions about certain relationships also feature heavily as a new me was now meeting new demands, wishes etc. In the next few weeks, I will be publishing parts of my diagnosis diary, so keep an eye on my blog. For more: Dogs, miracles with paws See you then! ©Willeke Van Eeckhoutte and Ireland, Multiple Sclerosis & Me, 2011-2014. Unauthorised…

  • Ireland,  Photography

    Caged

    In a recent visit to Dublin Zoo, I sat down next to a snow leopard busy contemplating life, separated only by a thick window. It was still early morning, and nobody was around. Time seemed suspended as we were taking in each other’s presence and it was a soul-searching as well as soul-enhancing experience. While there, I thought about the kind of people that create problems on so many levels while others mean well and only speak from the heart. On the other side of that coin, so many incredible, misunderstood animals like Amur leopards as well as snow leopards, wolves, whales or arboreal mammals are ruthlessly hunted or driven from their habitats and a  only seem to have a future on Planet Earth when they’re protected and locked up…

  • Advocacy,  MS,  Multiple Sclerosis

    MS Ireland National Meeting Day 2013

    Last September, I was invited by the Irish MS Society to take part in a panel discussion at their National Day in Galway. I happily accepted because we all know that I never say no to having a good chat. The topic of the National Day was ‘being active and interactive’, and the panel discussion covered employment, exercise, being online and volunteering. Trevis Gleason, well-known in the MS stratosphere and a new addition to the Irish population, interviewed four people with MS: Grace, Anne-Marie, Mark and myself. These are the videos covering above topics. We were all a bit nervous (no, really?! :)) because of being filmed, but we all did very well.