12 Of The Most Unique Gifts People With MS Want
17 Comments / Gift guides, because you deserve presents. / By Tripping / December 4, 2018 December 10, 2021
It’s the gift giving season and if you have a chronic illness like Multiple Sclerosis, you deserve presents most of all, because stuff can’t cure MS, but it sure can make it suck less.
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| The unconventional gifts people with chronic illness actually want. |
Gift-giving when MS is involved can be challenging. What to get the person who has everything a debilitating brain disease? One year, The Banker temporarily lost his mind and gave me an enormous, Barney-coloured heated blanket, and I cried all the way to Christmas dinner. My love language is jewel-toned, but on like actual jewels. I hated that blanket so bad, and not just because it looked like a deflated cartoon dinosaur – I hated it because it was a sick-person present.
Wow, you’re a spoiled sucky baby. A heated blanket is a pretty thoughtful gift for someone who’s cold all the time.
You’re not wrong. But just because I have MS doesn’t mean I’m not vain and superficial, preferring romantic gifts over practical ones. If the Barney blanket had come from anyone other than The Banker, I would have hated it less.
I mean, probably. I really can’t stress just how purple it was.
I know The Banker’s intention was to warm me up, but his choice of present didn’t feel like I was the sexy wife he wanted to drown in perfume and drape in diamonds; it felt like I was the shivering consumptive he wanted to cover with a polyester tarp.
Obviously I need therapy, and maybe you do too. But therapy is expensive, and this gift guide is free. You won’t find crossword puzzles, mugs filled with hard candies, festive epsom salts, or any other geriatric gifts here. Christmas is a time for reckless indulgence; a time for drinking too much champagne, and putting pickles in trees; it is not a time for gifts that remind me I’m aging in dog years.
Here are my top picks of the best, Tripper-approved gifts you didn’t even know you needed Santa to bring you this year.
1. Clean Hair
Showering is hard, and the last thing I ever wanna do after risking my life in that slippery, upright, future-coffin is lift a blow-dryer to my head. Whether you have heat sensitivity, balance problems, muscle weakness, fatigue, or any and all of the above, showering requires scheduling and recovery time. Having someone else wash and dry my hair is a weekly luxury that feels like an energy-freeing life-changer.
Gift: Blow-dry package from a local salon.
2. Buy Me A Drink
Every basic bitch’s chronic illness gift guide is gonna have tea on it. But do not come at me with a tired old box from the Hasty Market. I want fancy tea that comes with a tin and stern instructions not to over-steep it. This green tea is a major splurge, which makes it the perfect gift, because it’s the kind of thing you might not buy for yourself. Also, it comes from the tears of real dragons, or your money back (I assume).
Gift: Jasmine Dragon Tears Tea, Gourmet Hot Chocolate, seven dollar lattes.
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| Good enough to bust out the wedding china. |
3. Decision-Free Days
Do you ever feel like you will literally die one hour before dinner because you have no idea what to make and making that decision will end you, so you just stare at your phone for 157 minutes hoping Siri can figure it out, but she’s actually a useless cow, so you end up eating two saltines and an unwrapped Lifesaver you found at the bottom of your purse, before going to bed in your clothes?
There is science to back up the theory that we have a limited amount of decisions in us per day, and that number is, for sure, lower if you have MS.
Subscription services are all the rage because they save time and energy. You only have to choose how you want to stock your fridge or freezer once a month instead of every damn day.
Gift: Food Box. My local favourites are Plan B Organic Farm and Butcher Box.
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| Festive bells will distract your best frenemy from the fact that you just gave them cabbage and called it a present. |
4. Take-Out
Last night, The Banker told me how much he loved the turkey stroganoff I’d made for dinner. And I said, do you like it more than you like having sex? He didn’t feel safe answering, but the point is, if I’m making dinner I’m not making anything else. Dinner comes at a hard time of day, and no matter how much I’ve paced myself, I’ve already drained my battery.
Gift: Gift cards to delivery services like Skip The Dishes or Foodora will free up your evening for more interesting pursuits.
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| I’m all toasty inside. |
5. Can I Get A Ride Share?
Whether MS has messed with your ability to drive, you’re sick of being the DD, or your outfit is too fancy for the bus to handle, having access to transportation provides major liberation. In cities like Toronto you can even get a wheelchair accessible Uber (WAV), or Uber Assist which offers independently trained drivers to help seniors or persons with disabilities.
Gift: Ride service gift card.
6. Books You Don’t Have To Read
Vision loss is a real thing for many with MS, and if you’re struggling to see, e-readers are great for letting you choose a font that most people could see from space. If holding a device and moving your eyes is still too much, Audible is a great way to get learned and kill all those hours in the infusion room without the risk of paper cuts. Isn’t it great to live in the future?
Gift: E-reader, Audible subscription.
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| Nobody needs to know you’re reading about the sisterhood. Again. |
7. Clean Base Boards
MS fatigue can interfere with your ability to stay on top of your laundry and your lunch prep, and even if you’re able to do some tidying and light housework, for many with MS, the deep clean is too daunting to ever truly get done. If you’ve only got energy for one thing a day, it shouldn’t have to be scrubbing the toilet.
Gift: Gift certificate for housekeeping/cleaning service.
8. If You Can’t Hide It, Decorate It
Chances are you need a briefcase to hold all your MS meds and supplements, but you also need a smaller vessel to shlep around whatever meds you might need to get you through the day. Opening your clutch or man-bag and pulling out an orange plastic bottle just feels so…medical.
Gift: A pretty pill-case is a gift you can find at any price point. I’m currently coveting this one I found on Etsy.
Hold up. I’m a dude. This is starting to feel like a chick’s list.
9. Regularity
If you’re a dude and you’re still reading this, and wondering what the heck Santa is supposed to bring you, remember that housework is also your responsibility. But if that’s not enough to get you excited, the Squatty Potty® will. I know what you’re thinking, this feels 100% like a sick person present. But that’s where you’re wrong, because according to my niece Abigail, Everybody Poops. It just might take a little more creativity when you’ve got MS.
Gift: Squatty Potty.
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| It’s a stool for your stool! |
10. Hang Out
Technically, spending time with me doesn’t count as a gift, so make sure you bring lunch or a bottle of wine, maybe bake some cookies. Better still, take me Christmas shopping and offer to carry my shit, and rest at every bench. Or offer to push me in one of the wheelchairs you can borrow from the mall.
Gift: You being cool, and me not having to ask for awkward things.
11. Walk The Dog
If you’re looking for creative ways to say Happy Festivus, a commitment to walking the dog on the snowiest of snow days, or to scooping the cat litter on any day – because gross – is an energy saving gift that has the added bonus of providing you and yours with an extra chance to see each other during the week.
Gift: Pet Care.
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| Who wouldn’t want to hang with this bitch? |
12. Cure It
The best gift anyone with MS could ever receive would be to not have MS, obvi. Despite the tremendous developments in MS treatments, we must not get the impression that MS is under control. It’s not.
Gift: Make a donation to an organization that supports persons with MS, or that funds MS research. I like what they’re doing at Tisch.
Having Multiple Sclerosis means managing a constant personal energy crisis. All the time, I hear from loved ones who wish they could help. While you can’t fix MS (and black market prednisone is not a sustainable option), there are ways you can help extend the battery life of someone with a chronic illness, freeing up precious resources to spend on the things that really matter, like watching cat videos on Youtube, Google Earthing your boss’s house, or reading ridiculous blogs.
Want more gifts for people with MS? Click for gift guides from 2019, 2020, and 2021!
Happy Holidays, Trippers. I hope Santa is good to you!
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I've had MS for the past 3 years and I'm SO GLAD I found this blog!! This post is wonderful. Appreciate your content!!
Thanks for reading! I'm glad you found me too!
This is THE MS gift list.
Happy Christmas 2019 to you Ardra.
Your post is a Christmas gift to me… thanks for the laughs! My general rule is if I can't Read, Eat or Drink it, then chances are, I don't want it. (Does that sound too Scrooge-y?) So your list sounds pretty perfect to me! Happy Holidays to you and all those you love.
You are the queen of everything my sista. ( wait a minute does that make me a princess? Or a queen of a bunch of other things?) This list is perfect. You are a great blogger and I love reading your blog. You give me a smile everytime I read it plus good information. So I read on. Have a wonderful wonderful holiday. Karen
We live in a small apartment so we have to be very careful with what we choose to add to the clutter. Although, I somehow always manage to find room for books. And booze.
Merry Christmas!
Hi Karen,
Thanks so much for reading and happy holidays to you as well.
If they're giving out crowns for managing MS, I'll take one and one of those velvet capes too, please.
What a perfect holiday post! I'm so with you on the 'festive epsom salts'…much as I use them, I don't want them arriving in gift wrap. Warm wishes for a lovely Christmas Ardra, and thanks for posting – as always! ~~~ Barbara
Merry Christmas Barbara!
All that and a big handful of spoons! Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Can’t deal with the cold? It's time to rediscover your busy bathing schedule
https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2019/jan/30/ask-hadley-cant-deal-with-cold-beauty-products
Best gift – to not invite yourself over because you are in the area. Always, always call first and don’t get pissy if I say – not today. Or, I don’t know when. Cup of tea, a good boo, or silly movie, chocolate, and I am all good.
Good book – never a good typist.
And that is why call display was invented.
Great post! Happy Holidays to you. Thanks for the laughs.
I got a big maroon with sherpa fleece electric blanket but it’s still better than the Amazon 2 for 1 shoe horns I got for my birthday after expressing frustration at the back of my sneaker folding down evertime I put them on with my very attractive AFO in it. My husband is such a romantic after 32 years of wedded bliss! Hope everyone has a great Christmas and a great New Year! ?☃️?
Oh dear. I will accept a shoe-horn as a gift provided it comes with a beautiful pair of shoes!