Walk MS to help research for multiple sclerosis
Think about getting so exhausted preparing to leave your house that you rarely go anywhere.
Lori Kiker says that is a way of life for some people with multiple sclerosis.
“Doing your hair with a blow-dryer, putting on makeup, getting dressed can be a chore. Rather than do all that, some people just stay home and play video games,” said Kiker, who suffers from MS.
Diagnosed in 2012, the 52-year-old Phenix City woman now gets around on a scooter or walks with a cane.
Kiker leads the Chattahoochee Valley Multiple Sclerosis Support Group, which meets every second Tuesday at the Columbus Public Library. It has grown from 14 members to about 80 in a little over four years.
The group is working with the National Multiple Sclerosis Society for Walk MS to be held in Columbus April 1. The walk to raise awareness about MS begins at 10 a.m. with registration an hour earlier at Golden Park. The total length of the walk on the Chattahoochee Riverwalk is two miles.
Walk MS unites teams of families, friends, neighbors and co-workers to raise funds that drive research and provide life-changing services.
In 2016, nearly 300,000 people at more than 550 locations across the country walked raising nearly $50 million.
The National Multiple Sclerosis Society describes MS as an unpredictable, often disabling disease of the central nervous system that disrupts the flow of information within the brain, and between the brain and body. Symptoms range from numbness and tingling blindness and paralysis.
“It’s like a power cord to a light. If the cord is frayed, all the electricity does not get to the light. It is like that in the brain,” she said.
Most people are diagnosed with MS between the ages of 20 and 50 with at least two to three times more women than men being diagnosed.
She discovered she had MS when she began slurring her words. She thought she may have had a stroke. When a spot was found on her brain, she thought it might be cancer. A brain biopsy proved otherwise.
For more information about the walk or MS go to nationalMSsociety.org or call 1-800-344-4867 or 706-575-6925.
Larry Gierer: 706-571-8581, @lagierer
This story was originally published March 16, 2017 at 5:27 PM with the headline "Walk MS to help research for multiple sclerosis."