I live in a little house in southern central North Carolina.  I once lived and worked in the area training, grooming and riding horses for the racetrack, fox hunting and equine eventing.  I worked for a large animal veterinarian, a landscape company and a horse-breeding farm. 
I used to be very physically active!

In 1998 I was told I had multiple sclerosis.  Big deal I thought, I've got things to do.  That was the year of my first "big" exacerbation, but with some accommodations I kept working 14-hour days (I napped for an hour at noon).  I figured the symptoms I was having (vertigo, loss of balance, numbness in legs and arms, loss of sight, etc) would go away, and after several months they did subside – somewhat.  The residual symptoms I learned to live with.

Everyone around me seemed more concerned with my diagnosis than I was – I just couldn't imagine not being able to do the things I loved.

I believe at the time of my diagnosis it should have been Secondary Progressive (SPMS) but the doctors had me shoot up with Betaserion for the next 3 years, even though my physical abilities were in slow decline.  In 2001 I went to get a glass of water in the kitchen (I was a tad wobbly then), I reached for the tap handle and fell to the floor.  Now the neurologist applied the label Secondary Progressive MS (ya, whatever) to prescribe Novantrone and Copaxone.  It was almost a year before I could walk more than a few steps.
So I got a dog.  Charlie.

I made it out of the wheel chair but still wasn't steady on my feet.  I used walls when I was in the house and only shopped in stores where I could park next to a shopping cart.  I had applied and been granted SSDI, but I figured I wouldn't need it very long.

Charlie ended up being too rambunctious for me to walk safely so instead of training him, or anything intelligent like that, I had a fence put up in the back yard and got Lucy.

For the next five years I waited to get better.  I watched a lot of TV.  Every morning I was kinda surprised that I still had trouble walking – and eventually: reading, standing, holding my pee . . .

Feeling like my neurologist wrote me off, I went on the Internet to see if I could find out what other MS'rs were doing to fight this disease ~ this is how I stumbled upon MSWorld.org, where I eventually met and became part of Our Heart Greeting.

What a great site! (msworld.org) I spent a month reading "Life on Cripple Creek”, overjoyed to find someone else who seemed to mirror my sense of humor and disability experiences.  That lead me to the message boards where I finally joined, thrilled to make connections with other people in the same leaky ship as me.

One of the people I connected with on the msworld message boards was cimmonz, a very positive and funny poster.  Sure, I admit there are posters I avoid reading (too negative) but I could always count on cimmonz’ posts to be uplifting and/or hysterical (and often informative).

When she approached me about being part of a movement called Our Heart Greeting I leapt on board.  What a fantastic idea!  I want to make a difference in the lives of people with MS ~ especially I could envision making a huge difference to those newly diagnosed, who maybe like I was, are feeling lost and unattached.

Even now, years into some form of acceptance living with the MyStery, cimmonz has cheered me out of a funk and proved to me what OHG can do to enable someone who is [dis]able.