Fallosophy (My Trip through Life with MS)

Award-winning writer, podcaster, disability advocate, and TV fashion show host Ardra Shephard tells her story of living with Multiple Sclerosis ina debut memoir full of witty humor and hard-won wisdom. 

Twenty-three-year-old Ardra Shephard is sleeping with the wrong guy, living in a crappy apartment, and spending money she doesn’t have on designer shoes, boozy brunches and weekends in NYC. She hates her office job, but she isn’t panicked. She’s got time! Making mistakes while you figure stuff out is what your twenties are all about. Then a doctor tells Ardra she has MS, and those two letters split her life into a Before and After.

While over a million people in North America live with Multiple Sclerosis, there is no certainty when it comes to the progression of the disease. By her mid-thirties, Ardra is struggling to walk, and it’s terrifying. When she starts using mobility aids, she faces feelings of otherness and not belonging like never before. As Ardra’s deepest fears keep coming true, she starts to learn the most important lesson: She’s been sold a lie about disability—it isn’t a fate worse than death. Having so far survived all of her worst-case scenarios, she begins to realize that a difficult life doesn’t have to be a joyless life.

Fallosophy isn’t about fighting an unwinnable battle. It’s not about overcoming impossible odds. This is a story about Plan Bs and pivots. Ardra serves up wisdom like a bartender who has been there: with good humor and a gentle refusal to sugarcoat reality—in this case, what it’s really like to walk unsteadily through life with a progressive, disabling illness in a world that would rather not build a ramp.