A Little About Me

I've been dedicating this blog to our team and our journey to raise $15,000. I don't think I've said much about my own journey with multiple sclerosis. I've been pretty open with my MS, quite a bit of it is documented in my own personal blog.

When I was diagnosed with MS in February of 2006, I was left in shock. I remember thinking "there must be some sort of vitamin or diet or something that'll make things okay." Perhaps this was optimistic thinking. As I researched I realized that all the drugs currently available for MS were injections. Needles? Ew. Also, they all had side effects. When I met with my neurologist last May he said "You can either go on the drugs, go on a research trial, or just live your life." I'm natural. I don't eat meat. I try to avoid processed foods. There was no way I wanted to put drugs in my system. Therefore I chose the "do nothing" route.

In September another MRI revealed that maybe the "doing nothing" route wasn't a good route to take. I really had to rethink my options. This was when I started looking at the "research" part of the MS Society website. To make a long story short, I decided to go on a research trial and this week I started meds.

Being part of research has been an interesting experience, not only from the scientific perspective, but I've also got to meet a lot more people who have MS. I've met a man who flew to Ottawa with severe MS in hopes of a bone marrow transplant, he didn't meet criteria. I met a young mom who just learned her MS progressed to a more severe kind and is willing to relocate to Ottawa in hopes that a bone marrow transplant will allow her to be the mom she wants to be. I've met another girl who is in a similar situation to myself. I've seen people in wheelchairs, using walkers and canes to get around MS research area of the hospital. I've seen a lot of scary aspects of MS.

The study I am is a stage 3 trial of Fingolimod, a potential oral medication. This could be huge for people with MS. Really, who wants to give themselves needles. The study I am in looks at avonex (one of the injectable MS drugs) and fingolimod (the oral one). So, I am to take a pill once a day and a needle once a week. The needles were scary, and I was somewhat unsuccessful, actually I blacked out, but that's a story for another day.

Why am I writing about this on the blog? Because this is MS. This is potential for MS. This is the reality and the future. I am taking drugs now that could be the drugs of the future because the MS Society puts a lot of money towards research. This is why we are doing the walk. We are doing the walk so eventually there won't be young mothers needing to do radical things to be healthy enough to parent their children. We are doing the walk so we can continue on with research and testing and creating new drugs. We do the walk because I don't want to live my life in fear of losing the ability of walk. We do the walk so eventually we won't have to.

I do the walk.