TV Portrayal - Dr Richard McCaig

In the previous page I mentioned all I knew about MS, was what I had seen on TV. Two of my favourite TV characters had MS and both dealt with it in different ways, because as they say, everyone is different, no two are the same.

First there was Dr Richard McCaig from  Casualty portrayed by Gray O'Brien. How did he find out? First of all his eye sight started to go weird, then pain in the leg started him limping and he was tired all the time. He did not want to be a doctor and a patient and wanted to ignore he was ill. However, he had to seek help and was eventually diagnosed with MS - relapsing remitting.

On this diagnosis, Gray said "It's amazing how little people know about the condition. There seems to be a general lack of information about the disease, and we have a duty as a TV drama to be very faithful to the symptoms experience by sufferers"

I don't know how well it was portrayed as in 1997/1998 when this was being televised, I had no idea of MS except what Casualty was telling me.  The one thing to point out is that Richard did not end up in a wheelchair, because despite what a lot of people think, not every MS sufferer ends up in a wheelchair.

After diagnosis, Richard continued working because as work discrimination meant he was safe and he could not be fired because he had a disability, but is this true of everywhere? I am beginning to see flaws in that law.