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Walkers raise funds for MS in Niles
BY Jordan Cohen
NILES
The sign on Michelle Schuller’s back said it all: “I’m walking for myself and my brother,” it read. Both of them have multiple sclerosis.
Schuller, 43, of Southington, was one of about 300 people who turned out for the 2012 Walk MS at Eastwood Field despite Saturday morning’s rainfall and lower temperatures.
“We’re here, rain or shine,” said Morgan Goldthwaite, logistics coordinator for the Ohio Buckeye Chapter of the National MS Society. Goldthwaite said the average walker raises $225, and the money is allocated to local programs and MS research projects. The walk has been conducted annually for 25 years.
A number of the participants, like Schuller, are victims of MS, the chronic and often debilitating disease of the nervous system that, at its worst, can result in paralysis. There is no cure for MS, and researchers have been unable to pinpoint a cause.
“There are days when I can’t pick anything up, even a cup, without using two hands,” said Schuller, who said she was diagnosed in 2003. Thus far, she can walk without impairment, although she said her younger brother “has a gait in his walk.” Schuller said her 19-year-old son does not have the disease.
“Sometimes it affects my digestive tract, and it’s difficult, but I am one of the lucky ones,” she said. Her 20-member fundraising team calls itself the “Multiple Schullers.”
The walkers, many of them wearing colorful team T-shirts, ignored the intermittent rain and marched several times around the large Eastwood Field parking area, a distance of nearly three miles. One of them, Kathy Villella, 60, of Boardman, has been a teacher at St. Joseph and Immaculate Heart of Mary School in Austintown for 30 years. She said she has had MS for 13 years but was not diagnosed until 2008. Villella said she can walk with a cane, but she used a wheelchair for Saturday’s MS walk.
“A lot of people see me and think I’ve had a stroke, but [MS] is what it is, and I have to work with it,” she said. “I have a great support system with my family and the teachers.”
Her team, the 100-member “KV-Krews,” has raised nearly $20,000 in the last three years, according to Villella.
Nancy Wilkos of Youngstown said it took more than 10 years before doctors could accurately diagnose her MS, even though she believes she has had the disease for 20 years. Wilkos, 66, who uses a wheelchair transporter, said her advice for MS victims such as herself is to not succumb to depression.
“It can be very debilitating, but what you see on the outside isn’t what you are on the inside,” she said.
National MS Society statistics show that 20,000 people in Ohio suffer from some form of MS, from fatigue to paralysis, a point that Schuller noted before beginning the walk.
“Everybody is affected differently, and we need to find a cure,” she said. “It will incapacitate us at some time in our lives.”