ANNA — Susan Wilson, of Anna, looks forward every year to Shelby County’s WalkMS, the fundraiser that supports multiple sclerosis research.
Wilson suffers from the disease.
This year’s event will begin at 2 p.m., April 8, at the soccer fields in Tawawa Park. Organizers expect some 350 people to participate. To register, visit walkMS.org and click on “select a walk.”
“It’s so important to fundraise,” Wilson said. “The money raised goes for research, support, supplies for people that desperately need help.” The Shelby County goal is $25,000.
Wilson’s team, known as Wilson’s Walkers, numbers 40 people. Laura Carlson, of Sidney, is one of them. The two women became friends at the Sidney Church of the Nazarene, where Wilson’s husband, Chad, is the pastor.
“Susan asked me” to join her team, Carlson said. It was 2009 and Wilson and her family were traveling to Columbus to take part in an MS walk there. Carlson was among those who went along. The next year, a walk was started in Sidney.
“I can do something for my friend,” Carlson said when asked why she participates. “I can run.”
During the Shelby County event, all types of people follow the course. Some people run, some walk their dogs, some, like Wilson, ride their scooters.
Wilson has been using a scooter for the last three years. She was diagnosed with the disease in March 2002, several years before symptoms began to incapacitate her.
“I had double vision,” she said. It’s a common early symptom of multiple sclerosis; she began to notice it when she played volleyball on a church team.
“I would see two balls coming at me,” she said. The trouble wasn’t constant at first, but by January 2003, she was seeing double all the time.
“I thought it was a vision problem,” she said. But her eye doctor thought it was something more. Her family doctor scheduled an MRI and then sent her to a neurologist.
Multiple sclerosis is a disease that causes “patches” to form on the brain, Wilson said. The disease disrupts the flow of information within the brain and between the brain and the body.
When she was initially diagnosed, she was 24. Because she and Chad wanted to have a family and the medication that was suggested to her could not be taken by pregnant women, she took none. Now her children rally around her. They are Ely, 13, Drew, 12, and Ava, 8.
Her double vision went away after about three months and she didn’t manifest other symptoms for almost four years.
“There were several years when I didn’t think about having MS,” she said. Then, walking began to get difficult. She experienced gait and balance issues.
“The lesions (in the brain) affect the nerves. It makes communication broken. Even though I can tell my right foot to lift, it doesn’t get the message,” Wilson said.
Until recently, it was just her right leg that was affected. Now, she has noticed that her right hand is very shaky. Sometimes her speech is slurred.
“And when I get tired, I see double,” she said.
Chad installed grab bars in their bedroom, a walk-in shower and ramps, which aid Wilson in maneuvering around her house. She drives a van using hand controls. It has a lift for her scooter.
Wilson acknowledges that the disease has taken a lot away from her. But it has given her something, too.
“It’s given me new ways to give my testimony,” she said. “When I see someone in a scooter, it’s easy to talk with them. When someone offers to help me, it’s easy to talk to them.”
Wilson takes medication and goes to physical therapy sessions twice weekly at the Rehabilitation Center for Neurological Development at the Hahn-Hufford Center of Hope in Piqua.
“I feel like it’s helping. Today (Friday) will be the 146th day in a row that I will use my walker,” she said, proudly. She is slowly and doggedly making progress. Her goal is to graduate to walking with a cane.
“I have hope that one day, I’ll walk again and that is the hope because I know in heaven, I’ll walk,” Wilson said.
She’s not quite at a point yet to be able to walk during the Shelby County WalkMS. She’ll use her scooter there. What she likes best about the event is the spirit of teamwork that is illustrated.
“It doesn’t matter what team you represent. We’re all there for the same cause,” she said. “A lot of people have asked me why I’m not depresssed. It’s because my joy isn’t found in this world. My joy comes from Jesus.”
“And,” Carlson added, “she has friends who make her laugh.”
