#025: Living with progressive MS. Interview with disability advocate Mark Webb from UK

Mark Webb lives with progressive MS and shouts out loud for integrating all people with disabilities into society on all levels. You can read the complete transcript of the interview on my blog: https://ms-perspektive.com/025-mark-webb

Hello, and welcome to episode number 25, Living with Progressive MS. An interview with disability advocate, Mark Webb, who is known for his loud voice when it comes to bringing people who have one type of disabilities or maybe are different in any other way, brings them into society and not leaving them out on the edge. I'm very proud and happy that he took his time. And now enjoy the interview.

Introduction of Mark Webb

Mark is a Multi award winning public speaker and disability advocate. He talks about Diversity & Inclusion and disability with humor and shameless name-dropping. Mark lives in Kensworth, United Kingdom.

Personal experiences and coping strategies As someone living with progressive MS, how has your personal journey influenced your perspectives on diversity and accessibility within our society?

I guess not great in a sense that my experience of it. I'm a pretty much full-time wheelchair user. And I have a suprapubic catheter, so that's a tube that goes into my tummy. And I'm now holding up a bag of wee that I pull wee out of. So I need accessibility on multiple levels, and I just was not aware of the challenges faced by disabled people or advanced MS people. So hugely aware now, and I can remember in the…I was at school in the 70s and 80s. And one of the phrases to abuse someone was to call them a spas, as in spastic. And now, of course, I have spasm. So I've gone from this, you know, normal schoolboy, immortal kid, to being very aware. And I thank having advanced MS. I've moved on from speaking purely about MS. I talk about disability as a topic and diversity as a topic. Those two things I'm almost more passionate about than just MS.

How and where can interested people find you online?

Mark Webb: Well, if they find me on LinkedIn, that's where I'm most active. So I guess the easiest way is to look up Mark Webb and shift.ms. And I'm sure that would come up even though I left them recently. I get a bit left-wing political on Twitter or X. That's @Mark_Webb underscore. And on Instagram I'm @Mark Webb 99. And finally, I don't blog so much now, but I still am active. I blog at onemanandhiscatheters.com, which I hope shows the openness and a bit of humor that I use. The reason I chose that name was there used to be a sheep herding competition on TV, which was one man and his dog. That's the heritage of that bad joke that dates back to the 80s.

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See you soon and try to make the best out of your life,
Nele

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