What does it really mean?

What do I think of research?  Do I believe they will find a cure for MS? Those are tough questions because I don't have a straight forward answer. 

People come knocking on your door. Others phone. Everywhere you go it always seems like there is some other charity or cause to give to. So what does it mean when you give to a cause?  It depends I guess. Depends if it's something near and dear to you or just an obligation or in support of someone. 

Sometimes I feel like research is futile. Cancer is still out there, Aids, Diabetes, Heart Disease etc.  But when it comes to MS it is now something that is obviously near and dear to my heart. Was it before?  Nope!  I didn't even realize what it was. It was just something I had heard of before, and I had many misconceptions about it. 

Last year I decided to start a team "Grace" to participate in the MS walk. I had never done anything like this.  Little did I know that this team would grow to over 30 members and raise almost $10,000!!  The Morden coordinators were shocked. We were in the paper, and my husband was interviewed on the radio.  And in all of that it helped me. I'm not used to having people know how I have something wrong with me. The interview with the paper and radio was something my husband did because I just couldn't tell them. I couldn't say what wrong. I felt ashamed. I felt like everyone was now staring at me and it made me uncomfortable to ask people for money. So what did I do?  I "Facebooked" it....a lot!!  What happened?  We raised a lot of money!  Even if I annoyed the heck out people! Lol. And the next best thing was was that I felt support. It was more than just the fact of people giving money. It showed that people actually cared. People I had not seen since high school, people in the community that we had only been in for 2 years gave us money from their wallets. Hard earned money that could have been used on so many other things. They gave it...to our team...in support of me. 

Research for MS has come a LONG way. More so than many other diseases. Medicine from 20 years ago has changed the course of MS drastically. So yes I have hope. And not a fleeting kind of hope but a strong hope that there will be more breakthroughs giving people back their quality of life. 

So when you give know that it means more than just the fact of raising dollars. It shows the person you care. No matter who you are or what you are giving to. It matters to someone. 

To make a donation or to join team Grace in the Morden walk go to 

www.mswalks.ca