The world spun and rolled as I collapsed at Macy’s in San Francisco to the voices of Christmas carols being sung and bells ringing. Fresh out of the ICU and a week later, a beige man gave me a beige folder with a dark diagnosis that would color the rest of my life - multiple sclerosis. This set off a tidal wave, a tsunami inside of me that ravaged my body and crushed my lungs. I lived through 20 pneumonias, three years with a respirator, a year without eating, a 30-day coma, and now I find myself in a motorized wheelchair. My journey has only made me appreciate life all the more - the importance of feeling, smiling and loving - to lead with kindness and to make space for spirituality.

The MS Diaries is a memoir that seeks to impart the journey inside one man’s mind struggling with a severe chronic illness through uncensored personal anecdotes and humorous situations.

About the author

Jakob Vendle has secondary progressive multiple sclerosis, which he has been living with for the last 15 years. He lived in the US for 20 years, where he met his wife; they now reside in Stockholm with their daughter. For someone who can only move his thumb a twitch, life has not beaten him down. After writing this memoir, he has embarked on writing another book; a Stockholm noir crime novel.