Dan and I didn’t have a choice when we were diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, and combined we have battled it for nearly 25 years.
But we soon realized that the choice was all ours when we decided how we were going to live with the disease.
As we’ve often told the members of our MS support group, be your own best advocates in living and dealing with this disease. And members of the group came together on April 30 to do exactly that by participating in the Walk MS event in Midland.
With Dan serving as the captain of the group’s team – GC Sea Turtles – our team’s fundraising efforts contributed to the Midland walk’s collective total of raising more than $40,000 to support National Multiple Sclerosis Society research and programs. Way to go team!
And Dan and my advocacy efforts continue this weekend as we again are participating in Walk MS in Frankenmuth on May 14. This is the ninth year I’ve served as the captain of Team MonsterS, which is made up of supportive family and dear friends. This includes Dan’s sister, Dawn, and her husband, Mike, who regularly make the trip from Iowa here to Michigan.
This walk is super fun and supports our efforts in helping the NMSS fund programs and research initiatives that benefit the more than 400,000 people in the United States living with MS, including more than 18,000 in Michigan alone.
To learn more about how you can support our efforts in the fight against MS, check out Team MonsterS here.
We’re looking forward to this walk, and we’re asking you all to pray for sunshine in Frankenmuth on Saturday 🙂
A few more thoughts
Our prayers for strength go out to fellow blogger Herrad at Access denied-living with multiple sclerosis. We have never met her or her husband, Richie, but because of this community of MS bloggers we’re lucky enough to call them friends.
As you may have noticed, this isn’t an “MS Tip Tuesday” blog as we started two weeks ago. Checking some other MS blogs we enjoy, we realized that Karen at Meandering…One moment please, also includes a similar feature with the same title. We encourage you to check it out, and thus we are developing new ideas for a regular weekly feature. We are hoping you, our readers, might have some ideas for its title and theme. What are your suggestions?
And after a safe traffic-jam-free drive to Ann Arbor, I had a positive six-month check-up with my neurologist at the University of Michigan Health System MS Clinic this morning. Go Blue!
“Dan and I didn’t have a choice when we were diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis … the choice was all ours when we decided how we were going to live with the disease.” – Wonderfully said!
Caregivingly Yours, Patrick