MS be damned

I never saw the concrete coming, but it came quite quickly. Right up to my right eye as my head slammed into the sidewalk. Again. I fell when I was out running last week. I think my left leg, true to its traditionally sporadic toe-drag form, clipped a sidewalk crack about two miles into my workout. Up to that point in my run, I hadn’t dragged my MS-numbed left foot. Not once. I was feeling fresh. Even was sporting a brand new pair of Mizuno running shoes and new Under Armour running shorts. I don’t remember having time to think about the potential of the fall hurting...

Be a champion everyday

I need you to do something for me: Stop reading this for three seconds and think about what you consider the best victory in sports history. …………………. …………………. …………………. OK. Welcome back. What’d you come up with? Perhaps it’s the Miracle on Ice when the amateur American hockey team upset the highly favored Russian team for the gold medal in the 1980 Winter Olympics. Or is it the “Shot Heard ’Round the World” when Bobby Thompson crushed a walk-off home run in 1951 to lift the New York Giants over the Brooklyn Dodgers for the...

My MS lesson

On May 12, Dan and I will join our friends and family in Frankenmuth, Mich., for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s largest fundraiser, Walk MS. The walk is always a great event; good people, good times, an exciting atmosphere, weather that is often awful but despite that, the day is always wonderful. This is the 10thyear for our walk team, Team MonsterS. And I am the lucky captain of the team, which was among the state’s top 100 fundraisers in 2011. Yes, I’m so proud of our team. Which makes it ironic when earlier this week my mom asked, “Don’t you...

Trapped

Exactly one week ago today, I was enjoying the best concert I have ever been to. Funny—it was a show by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Yes, the 80s rock singer of Born in the U.S.A. The guy that led me to tell my mom nearly 10 years ago, after meeting my now-husband Dan, “Sure he’s cute and all but Mom, Dan likes Bruce Springsteen. Yuck!!” But in these last 10 years, I’ve gotten familiar with and fond of Springsteen’s vast catalogue of music. It is so much more than Jersey bar band music and Born in the U.S.A. I’ve even seen Bruce and company live...

Traveling, with MS

Jennifer and I have been together for nearly a decade, but she has yet to set foot into my parents’ home. We’ve gone back to my hometown of Monticello, Iowa, to spend Easter with my family each year, but the three steep steps leading into their home make it impossible for Jennifer to get inside with her power wheelchair. And so, we adapt. Read this post in its entirety and learn how we make this possible: Does MS Impact Travel Plans? Question of the...

“Come and see”

This Lenten season our church – Immanuel Lutheran Church – developed a devotional booklet where different members of the congregation wrote their individual reflections on John 1:43-51. Here is the devotional we wrote that appears for today, March 12. How convenient that this appears during National MS Awareness Week, March 12-18. We share Nathaniel’s uncertainty when he questions, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” When we both were diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, it was hard to believe anything good could ever come out of having a chronic...