Walk MS: Raising Awareness of Multiple Sclerosis

This April, I am leading a team in my first ever Walk MS event in North Carolina in support of my father who is currently fighting progressive relapsing multiple sclerosis. My father’s diagnosis was my first of ever hearing about the disease, and my first time ever meeting anyone who even knew someone with multiple sclerosis wasn’t until I ventured to a support group for family members of MS patients two years later with my mother.

However, in fundraising for this event, I was shocked by how many people around me have reached out in support with their own experiences of loved ones and friends suffering from multiple sclerosis. These previously hidden commonalities have made me determined to bring these connections to light and build a stronger public support group.

I strongly believe that knowing others around you can empathize rather than just sympathize with you is what beats those feelings of isolation, loneliness and disconnect that multiple sclerosis and any disease can bring. This is why team events like Walk MS are so successful; they bring people together and create bonds.

One of my other goals with this event is to raise public awareness of the disease and the facts behind it. With some people rudely staring in restaurants at my father’s unbalanced walking or making snide comments thinking he’s intoxicated, I often feel like the multiple sclerosis name and knowledge isn’t circulated enough. I feel like the Walk MS fundraiser event offers me the perfect opportunity to share my information through my father’s story and this experience with the disease.

The National Multiple Sclerosis Society reports that 2.1 million people worldwide suffer from multiple sclerosis; a disease there is no cure for. It is diagnosed in those aging in age from 20 years old to 50 years old. One of the most difficult parts of multiple sclerosis is its unpredictable symptoms that can range from blindness to paralysis to vertigo, and this doesn’t even begin to cover them all.

The commonality of multiple sclerosis does not affect the seriousness and difficulty of the disease. Watching my father battle this disease has been one of the hardest experiences of my life, and I can only begin to imagine what he suffers every day.

My father was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis about five years ago and was then diagnosed with progressive relapsing multiple sclerosis two years later during my freshmen year of college. Progressive relapsing multiple sclerosis is the rarest form and often said to be the most severe form of multiple sclerosis.

Progressive relapsing multiple sclerosis is like what it sounds. It gets progressively worse while also having occasional relapses. This type of multiple sclerosis only affects 5% of people with MS, and my dad is one of them.

Every time I come home and watch the regression of my father’s health from this horrible disease, I become frustrated, and I feel like no one understands. However, Walk MS has offered me a chance to work towards change. A chance to raise money and awareness while learning about others in my life who feel the same frustration.

So, this April, I’ll be walking for my father, someone who can’t walk these couple of miles but deserves to. So help us beat this awful disease that took that ability away from him. Donate, support, and educate yourself today.

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