Walk MS: Alameda 2009

I promised I would write about the walk, and I'm finally getting around to doing it! The walk was a success. My team, Chris' Crew, collected $1290 in donations. I am so proud of them for all their hardwork and for coming out and walking. Awesome.

The team met up around 8 am for the walk. After getting registered and putting on our official t-shirts t-shirts, we did some light catching up before doing the group stretch. There were tons of people there for the walk and it was nice looking around seeing other people with neon green stickers on their chests. The stickers were for people with MS and you could write in your date of diagnosis. There were sticker wearers with canes, without canes, with walkers, and even some in wheel chairs.

The group stretch was led by a woman who's been diagnosed for 25 years. I don't think she did any of the actual stretches, though. I made it through most of the stretching, but once the dizziness hit, I chose to stand still with my cane. Then we started to walk. We were moving quickly at first, but soon had to slow down a bit. My brain was rattling from the beginning, but I wanted to finish, so we kept moving. Honestly, the walk was pretty hard for me. My legs weren't too weak or wobbly, but my head was acting up. I had lots of dizziness, light-headedness, numbness, and tingling running through my body. When we got to the half-way point, I made the mistake of sitting down, which by body took as a sign to freak out. Moments after we started walking again, my vision went blurry and I was like that for the rest of the walk.

But we finished. All of us. It was a good feeling to complete and prove to myself that I can still do things when I set my mind to it. (All it took was a short nap to get myself back up to par) I'm excited to do it again and hopefully raise more money for the National MS Society. Thank you again to everyone who donated and sent words of encouragement. The walk was a great success.