(DA) The MS Walk 2014

When I was 16 I had a rough year.
I went blind in my right eye and during exams my right hand was so numb I couldn't tell if I was holding my pencil (most of the time, I wasn't. Unless I was looking at my hand, I couldn't keep the pencil in my hand long enough to write a sentence. Try writing a chemistry exam like that... awful.)

I had always complained about shooting pains and had been told by doctors not to worry, it was just 'growing pains'. But after I went blind in my right eye, the doctors started to take me and my pain seriously.
I was diagnosed with the help of doctors at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, AKA Sick Kid's.

They diagnosed my current blindness as 'Optic Neuritis', and associated my juvenile paralysis and inflammation of my cerebellum (at the time doctors thought I had meningitis) as Acute Cerebellar Ataxia (I think... that was a long time ago, but this is the term I remember). And those were both warning signs of MS.

To be perfectly honest, I wasn't surprised to find out I had a disease. Actually it was a relief to know that the pain I had been feeling and suffering wasn't normal. I was really happy to know that everyone else didn't have to go through that.

Since being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis; a degenerative nerve disorder, I have been blind, paralyzed from the waist down, lost feeling in my hands, feet, legs, arms, had a couple bouts of Bells Palsy that temporarily paralyzed half my face, and most recently lost much of my cognitive function to the point of communicating like a child. Most of my issues have resolved themselves with the help from family, friends and doctors. My brain is high functioning again, if I do say so myself, and I can feel all my limbs. Parts of the bottom of my feel are permanently numb but that hasn't stopped me from doing anything.

In the last couple years I have:
-played paintball competitively
-moved out on my own
-bought a dog and am raising him
-relearned how to bike and roller blade
-ran a 5K race in 29 minutes
-juggled several jobs
-planned my wedding/ got married
-enjoyed my honeymoon (roller coasters, paintball and whitewater rafting included)
-and I write every day

My story is not without its challenges, but my story is a very positive one. I exercise, eat healthy (a mostly dairy free/ gluten free diet), sleep a lot and love life. There are many people whose story is not so positive. My treatment regime, activity level and diet are all making my life wonderful (so are all the glorious people who share it with me), but when I walk in the Super Cities Walk for MS, I'm not walking for myself. I walk for the people who can't. For the people who are struggling with the disease more than myself, more than my family and friends, who need help and support, but don't have it as easily on hand as I do.

When I walk for MS, I walk for everybody else.

If you'd like to, please support me and my team. Join my team and walk for me, or walk for others but whatever you choose to do, let's do it together.

If you want to donate to the cause, PLEASE CLICK HERE

If you want to join my team and walk with us in Richmond Hill on May 4th, PLEASE CLICK HERE and click on JOIN TEAM.

And if you're just looking for some more information about MS CLICK HERE and watch the video. Amanda is one of the girls in the video; she's a volunteer, a friend and another young woman living with MS.

AND if you haven't read my short stories or essays inspired by living with MS and are interested in some reading please check out:
Buttons and Ice cream
A Mother's Instincts
Of Denial, Depression and Death

All of your love and support are greatly appreciated!

-Brandolyn