Message from Glen McMahon

Hi kids,

My name is Glen McMahon. I’m 40 years old, I live in Sydney and I’m an MS Ambassador.

You will probably know that MS stands for Multiple Sclerosis. But I like to think that MS means something very different. To me, M stands for Mind and S stands for Strength.

Let me tell you why…

Fourteen years ago I used to play lots of sports and do exercise all the time. Two of my favourite sports were rugby league and cycling, and I was very good at them too.

Then I started to feel different things happening to my body, so I went to see the doctors.

After they did some tests, they told me I had Multiple Sclerosis (MS). After a while, the MS made some changes in my body, and it became hard to walk. I had to give up my cycling and rugby league, and other more simple things became a bit harder to do.

A few years later I had to give up my job as a plumber and started using a wheelchair to get around. It isn’t easy when things change your life like that, but my family, the doctors, the nurses and MS Australia were there to help me out.

Then something wonderful happened! We had a baby daughter who is now 8 years old.

Like all dads, I wanted to be able to do fun things with my little girl as she grew up. I decided that even though MS had changed how my body worked, it wouldn’t stop me from doing the things I really wanted to try. I said to myself, “I’m not going to live with MS. Instead, MS is going to have to live with me!”

So I started looking around for some fun exercise that would make my body stronger and found a sport called hand cycling, which is for people who want to cycle, but can’t use their legs. Instead, we use our hands to push the pedals and make the wheels go round.

Now I get to do my favourite sport again, and even use hand cycling to help other people with MS. In 2004, I rode in the Sydney to the Gong Bike Ride to raise money for people with MS. It was a very long ride…almost 100 kilometres…but I finished!

It is very important to have people around you who also believe in you and care about you, like our families, friends, doctors, nurses, and the people at MS Australia. I often visit the Studdy MS Centre in Sydney to find out the latest info about how I can help manage my MS.

I sometimes go and speak to people about what it is like to live with MS to explain how they can raise money to help people like me who have MS.

One day I hope that my daughter and I will be able to go for a walk together hand in hand. Now that would be something to really smile about!