DIANE MAKAR MURPHY Getting in the swim helps those with MS find support

I was in the Youngstown YMCA on a recent Wednesday, seated in front of a pingpong table and looking through glass windows at a huge pool. I noted blue glimmering water and the tall walls decorated with vertical banners. One read, "Y Faith."
Across my field of vision, I saw a small woman with light cocoa skin, short graying hair, long slender legs and a slow walk. It was pointed out to me that she was a member of the class I was waiting to write about. That meant she had MS -- multiple sclerosis.
Shortly after, I met 72-year-old Florence Rouse, who began experiencing the symptoms of MS about 37 years ago. (I had always thought of the condition as debilitating, and it can be; it is thought to be an autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system). But Florence seems to project longevity, not disability. She has been married 52 years. Her mother died in the summer, just four months shy of her 100th birthday.
"I was 35 and my husband Eurad and I had just moved to Columbus from Youngstown because he was a career government employee and transferred," she recalled. Her son, Robert, was 10 and her daughter, Terri, was 13. "They didn't relate to [my illness] because at first there was nothing you could see."
First symptom
Florence's first symptom was a loss of vision. "It faded for a short time, like looking through a fog," she said. An optometrist sent her to an eye surgeon who prescribed cortisone, and mentioned MS only in passing, according to Florence. When she left town, he gave her a "slip of paper and said, 'If it ever comes back again, then give this to the doctor.'"
As time passed, she went from being "predominantly a homemaker," and doing alterations, to working as a substitute teacher in Baltimore, then a teacher's aid for a Montessori school in Hampton, Virginia.
For 13 years, she went symptom-free, but when Eurad retired in 1979 and they returned to the East Side of Youngstown, Florence started to have problems. "Arthritis and MS seem to go hand in hand," she said. "After a year, I had numbness in one leg and tightness around the waist." Her doctor sent her to a neurologist, and she showed him the slip of paper (not only had she kept it for more than 14 years, she has it to this day).
The next three weeks were spent in the hospital having a complete neurological check up. When she finally got the diagnosis of MS, Florence said she was relieved. She barely remembered the earlier doctor's suggestion. But this time, "to give it a name was a relief," she said.
Florence doesn't look negatively on her condition. "It has made me flow in a positive way," she said. "It has made me more assertive. It has made me stand up for myself in a strong way."
Physical effects
Now, Florence's MS manifests as a weakness on one side. She added, "I think most MSers have short-term memory loss. I have developed hammer toes to compensate for the weak side. My balance is off a little. I've had episodes of vertigo. It takes me longer to do housework." (The MS Society calls many of Florence's symptoms invisible because people will often say, "But you look so good!")
But looking out at the pool, where other MS Class members are already beginning their exercises, Florence stressed, "You don't have to be physically disabled to need this support though."
"The first time I came was in winter, this same time of year. I went to class every week, and they were the only ones that understood what was happening to me," she said.
Florence has about 10 classmates at each 9:30 a.m. Wednesday class. "We always go upstairs afterward and eat," she said. "The social part is just as important as the physical part. ... A family member may nod, but they just don't know like an MSer does."
For information about the MS swim class, call the YMCA at (330) 744-8411.
murphy@vindy.com