I should be walking today.
No there were no huge advancements in Multiple Sclerosis treatments or anything like that, and I haven’t walked in over 18 years, but again, I should be walking today.
May 9 was the scheduled date for the Walk MS event in Frankenmuth, the annual fundraising event for the National MS Society which Dan and I have participated in with our friends and family for each of the past 18 years. But the realities of COVID-19 led to the cancellation of the walk as we once knew it.
Sure, we were encouraged to participate in it virtually and walk on our own, and Dan and I definitely will do that at a later date. Just not today.
Walk MS is more than a fundraising event for us. It’s our opportunity to reconnect with my college friends, my first physical therapist and extended family members who are members of our walk team (Team MonsterS), as well as with other friends living with MS who we see but this one time each year.
This traditionally also is the weekend that Dan’s sister, Dawn, her husband, Mike, and their daughter, Elizabeth, come in from Iowa to spend the weekend with us and do the whole Frankenmuth experience, participate in Walk MS and just hang out at our Michigan home.
Still, not having the walk goes even further than that for me.
I’m not crying sour grapes. But this is my bitter reality: I’ve lived with MS for nearly 23 years, and it has taken away my ability to drive, walk, work full time and independently perform activities of daily living. Walk MS is a major event that empowers me because it gives me the platform to make positive contributions and changes to improve my life and the lives of nearly 1 million other Americans living with this chronic disease of the central nervous system.
In addition to increasing MS awareness in my community through my fundraising efforts, the money I raise for the event helps to support important MS research and programs.
Again, we still will do all of this when Dan and I move forward with our virtual Walk MS we’re looking to do in late June. Did you catch what I said there? “Move forward.”
Yes, all of our lives look a little different now. Changes are happening, often more frequently and quickly than any of us want or expect. But we all will show our resilience and push on through these new normals, and I say that with quite a bit of confidence. Living with the realities of MS for over two decades has had that effect on me.