The profile of the month is chosen by the MSIF editor from those submitted.

Peter Anker

Email: Email Peter
Year of Diagnosis: 1975
Country of Residence: Norway
Occupation: Partially retired, but works in family business

Peter is Vice-Chair of the Norwegian MS Society, the Norwegian representative on the People with MS International Committee and the PwMSIC representative on the Scientific Oversight Committee of the Sylvia Lawry Centre for MS Research


Family life with MS


I was diagnosed with MS in 1975. However, I had already had a neurological incident 11 years prior to the time of the diagnosis. When I was 11 years old, in 1964, I was diagnosed with Encephalitis (a brain infection). Most of the symptoms from when I was a child have re-emerged as an adult, in addition to a number of others.

Today, 39 years after the first episode with the illness and now retired, I use a wheelchair some of the time but use crutches when I walk. I live in Oslo, Norway with my wife Hege (47) and daughter Elisabeth (17). She is about to embark on her last year of high school. What she will do after that remains to be seen, but with an affinity for German, she contemplates further education abroad, possibly in Germany or Switzerland. We also have 2 sons - Carsten (24) goes to law school in Oslo and Erik (23) goes to business school in Bergen. His final term while writing his theses, will be on an exchange programme with the business school in Helsinki, Finland. The two boys are really out of the nest, but we spend time together at our summer house at Vasskalven, a little island about 130 km south of Oslo.

This magical island is located on the west side of the Oslo fjord with the Skaw (the ocean stretch between Denmark and Norway) straight ahead. At night, although hardly dark in the early part of the summer, you can see the flashes from the not too far away lighthouse. When it’s foggy, you can hear the foghorn from the lighthouse. The island has no regular electricity or running water. Reading light is produced by a solar panel up on the roof. Fresh water is fetched in cans from a neighbour island. Water for washing is pumped from a well to a pressure tank in the attic. Heated by the same solar panel, a hot shower is available, even if everyday hygiene is supposed to be provided by baths in saltwater. I swim daily for exercise. The water temperature ranges from 18-22 degrees Celsius in the summer and it is quite remarkable to cool my central nervous system. In fact, I never feel better than after a good swim in the Oslo fjord. We have had quite a bit of professional assistance to build a hand bar system on the jetty that enables me to get in and out of the water on my own. Getting into and out of a boat, however, requires a bit of assistance from Hege or either of the children.

People ask us if the summers would not be easier if we could drive from door to door and not be dependent on a boat to go to the island and to get supplies, even fresh water. But the children and also Hege (who grew up spending her childhood summers at Vasskalven) say they can think of no better place to spend their summers. They do admit, however, that they all have to be quite active and supportive for me to be comfortable living under such primitive circumstances. I can easily see that a more luxurious life would be easier, but as long as the family is willing to do what it takes, I am quite happy to spend summers at Vasskalven.

When the boys were small, we lived in USA and none of them can remember that dad in fact was able to walk and do things without support. However, we have a video which proves that I used to push the boys on the swing set in the garden without support of a cane or crutches. Elisabeth has never seen such things, but she vividly remembers how she reacted when she was first told by her mom why I had difficulties in participating in many of her activities at school or otherwise. “One day at school and quite suddenly, I cried for a long time, and nobody in my class could understand what was the matter, and I had to explain that I was sad because my dad was ill and that he would never get well. One day I learned that also another girl in my class has a mother with MS. We formed a club where we tried to gather as much information as we could on MS. It really helped to have another person, even at school that I knew and who I could talk to”.

It is quite evident to me and the children that Hege is really the one carrying much of the burden of support for me as she wants the rest of the family to be as unrestrained and as normally functioning as possible, and she has always felt that the children should not have to sacrifice and miss out on a lot of things because of my illness. She has for many years had to double up in terms of getting involved in school and sports activities.

All the children have throughout childhood and adolescence been keen cross country skiers and mom was always the one to be there on Sundays for the competitions and the one driving to and from events. For a long time, however, many of the other parents thought Hege was a single parent since there was never a father at the sport events.

All the children are now comfortable with my condition and they are all aware that it may get worse, but Hege and I always try to say that the development thus far has been extremely slow and will hopefully continue to be slow. We choose to be optimistic, but we all know, however, that there are no guarantees.