Message Board Moderator
Co-Editor, LivingMS Magazine
Web Management Team

Hello! Can you tell I’m an animal lover? This is me and Sparky. He so graciously allowed me to use his name when I first started using the internet. He was 10 years old then, hence my "User Name" ~ Sparky10. He lived to be 13. I miss him every day, but am comforted when I see his (our) name on my computer screen.

As I said, I’m an animal lover!
With 2 dogs, 2 cats, 3 horses, 3 aquariums, and in the summer too many hummingbirds to count.

I consider my MS journey to have begun on February 14, ‘00, at approximately 2pm. I was working at my "dream job", a veterinary clinic (I’d only been there 3 weeks). Everything was fine all morning, but quite suddenly, that afternoon, I was unable to hold myself upright when leaning over a sink. By day’s end my legs felt like I was running underwater. After the drive home I was fine. Each day got worse, so I went to my doctor the next week, who sent me to a neurologist.

"I’m 95% sure you have Multiple Sclerosis."

One MRI was all it took to make that 100% sure.

I wasn’t stunned, or shocked; my thoughts were more like, "Ok. What happens next?" What happened was 3 years of Avonex, 136mgs of Novantrone, and an updated diagnosis of SecondaryProgressive MS (had I not learned that I had been experiencing MS symptoms since ‘91, I would have been diagnosed PrimaryProgressive).

Once those symptoms hit that day in ‘00, I have not had a single day without them. On the bright side, I’m still very active (just look at that list of ‘critters’!) I love to work in my large yard; I simply have to work slower, do less at a time, and try to keep cool (not easy in Mississippi!)

I found MSWorld in '01, and joined Staff as a Message Board Moderator in ‘04. I’m able to reach a larger group of people now because I was asked to join the Web Management Team, and co-edit
LivingMS Magazine.

Together, we’re building an amazing website!