IT was 18 years ago that father-of-two Chris Janovitz was diagnosed with primary progressive Multiple Sclerosis.

He was 36 when he visited his GP complaining of back pain.

Self employed with a property maintenance business specialising in kitchens and bathrooms, taking a few weeks sick leave wasn't an option.

A year on, the nagging pain had not subsided so his GP referred him to a consultant.

Nine months later, aged 38, he was diagnosed with MS.

Chris says: "If I'd had a book on MS I could have diagnosed myself. As it was, I knew nothing about it and I only had a bad back.

"I wasn't in severe pain at all; it was just a nagging pain that hadn't gone. But looking back I had so many other symptoms; I was so tired all the time it would take me an entire weekend just to recover enough for Monday morning.

"My legs would ache if I walked for a while - I never put it down to anything being wrong and it certainly never crossed my mind that it might be MS.

"I had trouble negotiating busy pavements and stepping out of the way of other people - I just put it down to clumsiness. My neighbour even told me after I'd been diagnosed that she used to think I was drunk sometimes because of my clumsy gait."

The news that he had MS came as a shock but it wasn't until he began reading about the disease that Chris admits he became scared.

He said: "Like many people who are newly diagnosed with MS I went along to a function organised by my local MS group. I didn't like what I saw - here I was perfectly healthy walking into a room filled with people in wheelchairs - that wasn't going to happen to me.

"I stayed till the end but didn't return for two years."

In those two years, Chris had to give up his business and begin walking with a stick. But undefeated he decided to retrain in IT.

He explains: "Where building maintenance was concerned I had become a liability. I also was no longer earning enough because jobs were taking me longer to complete, which meant I couldn't do as many.

"I wanted to find another skill and tried my hand at IT and computers and I am thankful that I did."

Although on good days Chris manages to walk a few steps with the aid of a walking frame on a morning, 16 years on, he relies on his electric wheelchair.

He has lost the use of his legs and, after recently suffering a fall, he has lost some mobility in his left arm.

Only 15 per cent of those diagnosed with MS become confined to a wheelchair.

And it is Chris' love of computers: building them, fixing them and desktop publishing, that has become his full-time hobby.

He says: "It occupies my time, it's something I really enjoy - if I didn't have that I would have to watch daytime TV. If I hadn't got MS I wouldn't have learned to use a computer."

Fatigue is a classic symptom of MS and when Chris says he has bad days it's because he is consumed by an almost paralysing fatigue.

He says: "It's so hard to explain because when you say to people fatigue they think you mean tiredness - have a couple of hours sleep and you'll be ok.

"The fatigue can last for days - the best way I can explain it is that if someone said to you to move 12 inches in order to stay alive you'd have to think very hard about it. That's the worst thing about MS - the fatigue, it's more disabling than the disease itself.

"The MS could stop at anytime and I may get no worse than this. There's also the fact that as you get older the progression of the disease gets slower. I use this as my coping mechanism.

"Every time it gets worse I think to myself if it just gets as bad as this I can handle that. And you think it every time, like when I just recently lost some movement in my arm."

But Chris remains upbeat and declares himself a realist, saying: "You can feel cheated and ask why me?' "You can ask, but it doesn't get you anywhere. Many MS sufferers have depression. Thankfully I'm not one of those.

"It doesn't get me down, there's no point in letting it. I have very little control over my disease so there is no point worrying about something that might happen in the future. There's nothing I can do to change it."

He adds: "It's really more cruel for my wife, Helen. We were married for 20 years when we had to holiday separately for the first time - she went to St Lucia to see our son get married and I went into respite care because it wasn't practical for me to go as well.

"That was hard. She's not disabled but her life is affected because of the MS. Her life has changed through no fault of her own and she is now my primary carer.

"Despite having severe arthritis herself she still has to help dress me and lift me but in some respects it has brought us even closer.

"The hardest part is not knowing what tomorrow will bring. I choose not to go there. It would only make me feel worse.

"If this is as bad as it gets I can handle it."

sharker@guardiangrp.co.uk