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

Claudio Conforti

Email:Claudio Conforti

Country of Residence: Italy

Year of Diagnosis: 1993

Occupation: Project Quality Coordinator

Type of MS: Primary Progressive


When this story begins – more than ten years ago – I considered myself a relatively normal case in today’s society: a good job on one hand (working as a chemical engineer in the process department of an engineering and building company for oil and petrochemical plants), but on the other hand a divorce behind my shoulders, no children, and as a result not so big an interest in the future of my life. Then, suddenly, after several months of a little symptom (poor equilibrium/balance), the unexpected answer to another medical question, raised by an audiologist: no compression of the acoustic nerve, but…. “small white areas” in the MR image. From the audiologist to the neurologist, and then the new words: multiple sclerosis. I had hardly heard the words before, as a far and indefinable medical expression. But immediately after, the neurologist himself told me: “Don’t think your life has finished, the disease is so different from a case to another. Wait and see, it could also develop at a very slow speed, look always at the present and use it at your best, don’t worry about the future until it is the case” (or, as we say in an Italian proverb: “Don’t bind up your head before it has broken”).

Then I started looking for a sort of association or society, connected with multiple sclerosis (I had never heard of one before), and found the address of the local branch. I went there and met a gentle lady, the chairwoman, who not only said the same as the neurologist about the possible development of the disease, but added: “OK, welcome to our society, we need you; don’t think first what the society can do for you, but what you can do for the society, i.e. for other people with MS. Next month we start a new course for volunteers, it would be a good opportunity for you to have a good start.”

And so the story begins: new acquaintances, new activities envisaged, an unexpected good impact with psychology (the course was lead by a psychologist with a long and wide experience with MS patients), which helped me also personally.

Immediately after the end of the course, I started working as a volunteer with the local branch, and was involved in the organisation of local and national fundraising events. So I found in myself new capabilities that I did not even suspect to have. I was methodical, slow in my decisions, and very “cold” in my relationship with others, and learnt to operate in teamwork, giving my contribution as advice. So, when somebody asked me to participate in the life of the branch more actively, proposing myself as candidate for the local board, I was a little puzzled at the beginning, feeling inadequate for the position, but then said to myself that nobody knows what he is able to do, until he starts doing it. In our own dialect we say: “Nobody is born “learned””, so, let’s start with this work!

An aspect of my own character has always been the special interest in foreign languages, and I must admit that I not only like learning and practicing them, but that I have good success. So, when other people in the society learnt it, they asked me to participate in an international committee, where each of the national MS societies had a person with MS as representative. We have in our society a national committee as well, composed only of people with MS, one for each branch. This committee sent me to Birmingham in 1998, to participate in MSIF’s Persons with MS International Committee (PwMSIC) meeting together with our representative, who was about to leave his position, and taking his place. The impact was tremendous: so many people from so different countries, but with the same aim: give more importance to people with MS in their national societies and worldwide as well. The purpose is important and may sound too high, but then I found out that it was built step by step, in strict cooperation among different national situations.

Now I am so engaged in my activities connected with the Italian MS Society and MSIF, that I feel sometimes even too busy; but the degree of satisfaction in doing my best in this field has now become even higher than in my job.

Yes, I must admit that my MS has gone ahead: walking is not so easy as before, fatigue is often taking me when I still would do more, but then I remember the words of my first neurologist: “Do your best now, don’t look back to what you lost, but ahead to what you still have to do, with the “abilities” you have, notwithstanding the “disability””.

And now, a new chapter has opened. In Italy there is a federation of many societies that deal with disabled people problems, and the Italian MS Society is one of the founder members. It is called the Italian Federation for the Overcoming of Handicap, and is one of the partners of the political authorities in the definition of laws and administrative rules aimed at a just quality of life and equal rights of citizens with any form of disability. I was asked by our national chairman to be presented as candidate by the MS society and, after some hesitation, gave my agreement. In the recent congress I was elected on the national board of the federation. And now, from January 2004, the new adventure begins! Politics has never been part of my experience, but struggling for the rights of the so-called “disabled” (which I feel part of) is surely worthwhile!