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general surgery. The surgeon in charge of this surgical unit was known to besomewhat eccentric, driving an ancient 1936 Rolls Royce. He was also a notorioustyrant who expected his junior doctors to be present on the wards at all hours, both dayand night. Needless to say, this continuing level of stress gave rise to further bouts ofback pain associated with the AS.My next job, starting in August 1975, was as Casualty Officer at Singleton Hospital,Swansea.This was busy, but not with the level of stress previously experienced in GeneralSurgery. At times the work was intense, with several hundred patients being seen eachday, all attended by just three doctors. It was during my duties at this task that Iexperienced what may now be considered as my first symptom of MS. This was thesudden onset of a divergent diplopia, or double vision.I was subsequently seen by an ophthalmologist, who, without offering any explanationof why this might have occurred, simply gave me a small card with two separateimages, on one side a picture of a cat, and, about three inches away, on the same sideof the card, an image of a tail. The aim of the exercise was to focus the two images sothat they coincided, placing the tail on the cat.This amusing little exercise kept me busy for the next three months before the diplopiafinally resolved, with normal vision re-established as a single image once again.I completed the job at Singleton in February 1976, when I decided to try my hand atanaesthetics. After being shown the various techniques involved in inducinganaesthesia I was considered safe and fit to start my own anaesthetic list within justone week.I continued this work until 1978 when I decided to transfer to General Practice, startingwork in a small practice in the Brynmawr valley, in Gwent. I left this post early in 1979and I made use of Aircall, working mainly at night or at weekends, when regular GPschose to use this emergency cover instead of attending the calls themselves.Eventually, I found a longer-term post at a practice in Clydach, one of the outlyingdistricts of Swansea. Having the convenience of a local post I was at last able to takeadvantage of the opportunities to do some gardening and also some restorativework around the house. I decided to take on the task of renewing the concrete of thedriveway and an area at the back of the house.Anyone who has ever used ready-mix concrete knows that the mix sets very quickly soit was a frantic race against time trying to complete the task before it all went hard.This was the time when I noticed the first real sign that I now recognise as MS. Onehalf of my right thumb had suddenly become numb.I initially attributed this to the demands of my heavy days work but, as time went by,within a few days, the other half of the thumb had also gone numb. Next was the firsthalf of the first finger, then the numbness of this finger became complete, then the nextfinger was affected, then the next. Within about ten days the whole hand had becomequite numb.I did initially assume that this would eventually resolve itself, but it has only been sincestarting the LDN, in 2001, that the hand begun to regain its normal sensation.Produced by LDN Research Trust for International LDN Awareness Week 19-25 October 2009© LDN Research Trust 200922