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EDITORIAL – Walking the Walk

May 9, 2013   ·   0 Comments

Over the weekend I participated in the Mandarin Walk for MS in Alliston.

I have been walking to raise funds for MS for many years, and have managed to beg, borrow and (almost) steal thousands of dollars from family members, friends and colleagues along the way.

I don’t remember the exact year I first participated, but I do remember the experience.

It was one of those rare days in May, when Mother Nature decided to share a final blast of winter air. I was walking with my sisters (Kellie and Sheri) along side our wheelchair-bound mother, Carol.

My mom was diagnosed with MS over twenty years ago. She first knew she was sick when she started having double-vision and found herself walking sideways.

“I’m not drunk,” she would say, “but I walk like I am and that’s embarrassing.”

Further analysis of her condition, which included a long-awaited MRI scan, reveled a dark spot on her brain. Originally, doctors thought she had a brain tumor. We were thankful (?) when we discovered it was “only” MS.

Multiple Sclerosis is a degenerative condition of the Central Nervous System. It occurs when scar tissue forms on the mylar sheath (the Teflon-like coating that covers neurotransmitters from our brain to our bodies) which interrupts messages to our nerve endings. When you want to lift your arm, for example, you may actually move it sideways. When you want to walk forward, corrective “steering” is often needed to stay on course.

There are other horrible implications as well – incontinence, loss of self-reliance, endless medical treatments and of course fear of death.

For my mother, the worst part was the shame, which caused depression. When your brain is operating perfectly and your body is betraying you, your quality of life decreases. Although she had many days when she felt good she had many more when she just wanted to die.

I remember one occasion when she told me that if she didn’t “know” she’d go to hell, she would have killed herself a long time ago. Not exactly the words you want to hear from your mother – ever. MS diagnosis or not.

But I understood her reasons, and so in 2008 when she discovered she had cancer and just a few weeks to live, she was happy.

In 2008, at RVH Hospital in Barrie she died. Free from her incurable MS. Free from the body that had betrayed her. She would walk, not roll, through Heaven’s pearly gates, and she had no regrets about a short-lived life. At 59, my mother gave her life away. Opting not to fight the cancer; having already succumbed to the MS inside her head.

Before I lived in Alliston, I lived in a 4-plex in Tottenham. My neighbour, Kim Boyd, reminded me so much of my mother. We grew close very quickly and she filled a need inside of me. A void left open by my mother’s untimely departure.

Like my mother, Kim is nurturing, loving and attentive. Sadly, she also has MS.

The days of pushing my mother through the streets of Barrie during the annual MS Walk had been over for me for a few years. And I was glad. I hate MS. I hate what it does to its victims; to their families; and to our society as a whole. I hate asking people for money so I can walk 5km to raise awareness for an illness that shouldn’t exist in the first place.

But my walking shoes are back out of the closet. I now walk with Kim. Kim has regressive MS and she hasn’t had an attack in a while. Since I met here, her condition hasn’t worsened – but I can promise you I watch her like a hawk for any sign of decline.

I shouldn’t have to walk for MS. But I do. And I won’t stop walking the walk until researchers are taking the talk – a cure.

I won’t stop walking because maybe if my mother’s MS had been treatable she would have fought the cancer. I won’t stop walking because now I have Kim to fight for, and in my healing process, that’s a step in the right direction.

By Wendy Soloduik

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