'Kicking and Screaming' or 'Gracefully Conceding': Creative Nonfiction Stories of Aging with Multiple Sclerosis

Aging with multiple sclerosis (MS) is a complex phenomenon. Some individuals report physical and cognitive dysfunctions regarding these combined experiences, whereas others report perceived improvements in quality of life. Beyond this, little is known regarding how people make sense of, and come to embody, negative or positive experiences of MS. Thus, our objectives were to (i) explore how people make sense of aging with MS and (ii) present this in an artful, engaging, transformative way. To achieve this, we conducted forty semi-structured interviews with older adults who had MS, analyzed data using pluralistic narrative analyses, and presented result through two creative non-fictions. We detail our process of creating the non-fictions before presenting the different stories of aging with MS, namely ‘Kicking and Screaming’ and ‘Gracefully Conceding’. We then offer recommendations and implications for using these stories as knowledge translation devices, and further critique the limitations of these stories in practice.