My name is Sarah, I am 33 years old and live in Royston. I met my husband, David, 16 years ago and we got married in October, 2001. We both originally come from Up North (near Wigan), and moved Down South in 1999. I graduated from Manchester University with a Mechanical Engineering degree in 1996 and currently work as a mechanical designer at TTP in Melbourn.

I started with symptoms in 1993, a few weeks before I was due to start university e.g. dizziness and vomiting which lasted days. The doctors put this down to food poisoning, viral vertigo, an ear infection, a urine infection etc. No-one mentioned MS. 

After University I moved to Lincoln in 1996 and in the following 6 months had further 'symptoms' which included numbness, sensory loss, vertigo style nausea (again) and unsteadiness. I went privately to a neurologist who said I had 'classic symptoms of an inflammation of the central nervous system' (I didn't bother to ask what it meant!). After the usual tests (MRI scan, blood tests and a lumbar puncture) I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 6 months later in June 1997, but I have only recently, in March 2006, become an active member of the North Herts branch of the Multiple Sclerosis Society. 

When I was first diagnosed, the thought of joining a group with other MS patients, at a more advanced stage of MS, was quite daunting. I don't know how other PwMS (people/person with multiple sclerosis – a new term I learned recently) feel after diagnosis, but personally, after being diagnosed with relapsing remitting MS I found it was difficult to get involved with anything MS related because that would have meant admitting to myself that I had MS - maybe after 9 years it's about time I did become involved!!

I wanted to start a young person's MS website and group because I thought it would be a good way for young people with MS in the North Herts area to contact each other and meet up socially (i.e. in a pub/curry house?) in a mutually supportive environment and have a laugh. After reading in a newsletter about Nick's young person's website in Colchester (http://youngmsgroup.webeden.co.uk), and seeing the incredible effort he went to and the resultant fantastic website I thought "why can't I do something like that?"

I got in touch with my local MS Society branch (North Herts) to see whether they had a young person's group, or would like any help organising one. There was no active young person's group and  Helen (Ilsey) invited me to the next committee meeting to discuss starting one (which was a daunting prospect - but didn't turn out to be as scary as I first thought).

At the committee meeting I met the founder of the current website, Bob (Izzard), and he was only too pleased to hand over the reigns of the website.........talk about jumping in at the deep end! My mechanical engineering background hadn't prepared or equipped me with the skills necessary to run a website. Bob has been incredibly helpful and always at the end of the phone line (or e-mail) to help with any problems I encounter.

As the website is such a new subject and experience for me, please fill in the 'contact me' form and leave me any feedback which could help me.

On the 'who are we?' page you will have seen a list of all the members of the young person's group, their photos and their stories. If you would like to join the group, please fill in the 'contact me' form and I'll be in touch.

One thing that has helped me through my MS diagnosis is the fact that I have the most amazingly supportive family, friends and husband who do everything they can to help me and understand what I am going through, I couldn't have survived 9 years without them (permission granted to sniffle into a tissue!).

Sarah x