Wow, this place has changed. I haven't been here in a while and hardly recognize the place. It's been a long, hard winter. Spring is just around the corner and it's time to come out of hibernation.

It will soon be time to walk the walk for MS research. It does amaze me how it can take so much time and so much money and they don't seem to be able to come up with a solution. I refuse to call it a disease until they find the root cause is a virus. Disorder works for me as this condition seems to have me feeling internally dishevelled. How one half of my body feels all cockamamie in relation to the other side. I look perfectly normal. I feel wierd.

When I was a young(er) lady, one winter some time ago, okay decades ago, I had this incredibly fashionable "de rigeur" winter coat. I lived in Montreal after all. You had to dress the part. It was a long coat, sort of in the shape of a military officers overcoat. Double breasted gold buttons, full belt around the waist and it extended to just above the ankle. It had a shiny coating that gave it a nice reflective sheen; a kind of film that encased the fabric. Well, this film was not built for the cold and it soon cracked and peeled right off, just like your skin would a few days after that sunburn.

Well, being adventurous, and wanting to get away from that cold, and the FLQ (see Oct 10 2005 post), I went out west. It was like living in the tropics. A decade there and then I went south to California. That is where things started going south for my health too. Before I was ever given a diagnosis, I can remember thinking that something inside my body was crackling like the surface of that coat. I keep thinking about that coat while I was living in a land where 100 degrees was a normal day time temperature. To make a long story short, unlike that short lived coat, it took two years of tests while they ruled out every other possible cause and gave me my diagnosis. I am happy to report that no big change has happened since then. My abilities seem to be normal. I will do the 3 mile walk for the cause. 5 is now out of the question, but not due to MS, rather the lack of practise. I just don't walk as often as I used to. However, I really feel that I should make an effort to do more of it. That old saying "use it or loose it" comes to mind.

If you can, please walk for the cause. If you can't, please pray for the cause. Let's get to the root of the matter.