Looking back on your past year (it’s standard protocol for any New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, right?), what events stand out as your highlights? Perhaps it was achieving a long-time goal such as losing weight, running your first 5K, quitting smoking or completing a house remodeling project. Or, maybe it was the vacation…… Continue Reading
Catch the Digmanns in the news
Tag Archives: awareness
Our very Osmond anniversary
Call it convenient timing, but the National Multiple Sclerosis Society Michigan Chapter hosted its annual Women on the Move Luncheon Tuesday, Sept. 10, in downtown Detroit. It was the same day that Jennifer and I celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary. Hmmmmm …. The foundation of Jennifer and my story is that we met at a…… Continue Reading
Advocacy starts here
Sometimes, it’s easy to feel powerless when you’re living with a chronic illness. Maybe because of your disease you can’t stand or work or control the course of your condition. We live with a lot of this everyday. But in our determination we offset these “Can’ts” with activities that make us feel powerful. Advocating for…… Continue Reading
MS and a 6th grader’s vision
Ryan Backus hadn’t really heard of Multiple Sclerosis before March of this year. The Fancher Elementary School student was focused more on the activities and issues that typically concern 11-year-old boys. You know, things like making art, drawing pictures, playing baseball and hockey and rehearsing for the 6th grade Mock Rock event. But his not-so-typical…… Continue Reading
A top story at 6
We encountered some surreal sorts of moments as the nation celebrated MS Awareness Week March 11-17. As part of this celebration Jennifer and I spent all day Thursday at Central Montcalm High School in Stanton, Mich., sharing our stories with six different classes of students. High school English teacher and our friend, Theresa, had invited…… Continue Reading
Mind if we play through?
I enjoy that even with the challenges Jennifer and I face in living with MS, every day life is everyday life. The effects of these challenges – including everything from her inability to walk to my constantly numb hands and feet – merely are par for our courses of this disease. It’s as though we…… Continue Reading
Help 'Challenge MS'
Less than two weeks ago, we learned about a group of local people preparing to undertake the unthinkable to fight Multiple Sclerosis. They are going to ride their bikes from Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, to Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, in an ambitious endeavor to raise awareness and $20,000 to help fight MS. We, along with our…… Continue Reading
Our MS story on Sirius XM
We’re so ecstatic that our Detroit Tigers beat the New York Yankees in the American League Championship Series! In addition to the fact that the Tigers swept the Bronx Bombers to secure their spot in the World Series, their quick ALCS win gave us this weekend to prepare for (and freak out about) one of…… Continue Reading
Faith in the face of MS
MS and our story are making it to the East Coast! We spent nearly 45 minutes on the telephone last Monday evening with Paul Kretchmer, producer of the WIHS Journal (104.9 FM) radio program for the Christian radio station based in Middletown, Conn. He had contacted us to follow up on the news release we…… Continue Reading
Live Fully, Fight Back and Find Hope
Teaming up with the Jenkins Group in Traverse City, Mich., we launched our first nationwide campaign promoting our book, “Despite MS, to Spite MS.” The company worked with us to develop a targeted news release and this week distributed it to nearly 2,400 media outlets nationwide, including magazines, newspapers, websites and radio and television programs.…… Continue Reading