Essex wheelchair user's Suffolk to Cornwall challenge kicks off
Mr Parker said while he had been diagnosed in 2009, he experienced symptoms in the mid-1990s.He felt his body was "slowly shutting down" and "things were getting harder to do".MS is a condition where the immune system attacks cells in the brain and spinal cord, affecting how people move, think and feel.While it cannot be cured, treatments can manage it.
"Because it's neurological, the messages aren't getting from my brain to where they need to get to," Mr Parker explained."It affects my ability to see sometimes, my balance, I've got numbness in my hands and feet constantly, I've got pains shooting through my body."While working as a school teacher he said he could hearing people describing him as "drunk" around the corridors as he struggled to move.He then struggled to accept he needed a wheelchair, but said "it has opened up my life".
Mr Parker said he had "quite flippantly" decided to embark on the challenge and raise money for charities Andy's Man Club and No Child Without."Everybody goes from top to bottom or bottom to top, and I thought I'll go from east to west," he said of his challenge."I never in my wildest imagination thought I was going to be thinking about crossing the country."On Monday Mr Parker travelled from Diss to Newmarket and expected to complete the challenge on 8 August.
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