MS SUFFERER FINDS HER FEET AND HER MEANING

Lori Wikdahl blames multiple sclerosis for taking her life away from
her. She also credits the disease for giving her a new one.

In May, Wikdahl began a nine-month trek across Canada. Starting in
Cape Jourimain, New Brunswick, the Mission, B.C., resident has walked
an average of 35 kilometres a day, ploughing through heat waves,
downpours, and snowfalls. By the time she reaches English Bay on
February 8, she will have marched about 6,430 kilometres in an effort
to boost awareness of MS. She says that distance seems like nothing
compared to what it's like to live with the illness.

"I used to be a very active person," Wikdahl says on her cellphone
near Sicamous before heading out for another day on the road. "I
golfed; I snowboarded. I was a beachcomber, a camper, a hiker. I
coached football; I ran a business... In the blink of an eye, I
couldn't do it anymore. I'm a North American; we strive for
excellence, for success. Everything you do creates who you are: your
home, your work. I identified so heavily with that, and when it
disappeared I didn't know who I was anymore. I had no pride. I lost my
self-respect. I became a hermit and I lost my hope and faith."

After years of chronic pain, Wikdahl started walking. It felt good.
Day by day, she would walk a little bit more. Soon, the activity
became her reason for getting out of bed, no matter how lousy she
felt. At the end of 2002, she tallied up the distance of her walks
from that year alone and realized she had travelled about 3,000
kilometres. So she decided she'd go across the country.

"I've had more of a life in the last nine months than I've had in 10
years," the 44-year-old married mother of two says. "I'm not
religious, but I found faith. I've had the feeling that God has come
to visit me on the road in the form of strangers who gave me
motivation, compassion, empathy, and sympathy. Inspiration was always
there exactly when I needed it."

Wikdahl explains that she was almost ready to quit at one point in
Ontario. The region was experiencing extreme heat and humidity, which
aggravated Wikdahl's condition. Painkillers weren't doing anything to
help her, and she sat down on the steps of her accompanying motor home
and burst into tears. She didn't think she could go any farther.

Then someone knocked on the side of the trailer. A woman who also had
multiple sclerosis asked if Wikdahl had ever tried medicinal
marijuana. She had, but she chose not to take any on her national
journey to avoid controversy. She took up the woman's offer for some,
and the relief it provided gave her just the boost she needed to carry
on. Soon after she walked the Terry Fox Courage Highway, an
83-kilometre section of the Trans-Canada between Thunder Bay and
Nipigon where Fox was forced to end his run, because of cancer, in
1981.

"That gave me new eyes," Wikdahl says. "I got to walk the last 100
kilometres of a man's life in my own way. I felt exactly the same way
he must have felt; I didn't know if I could go on or even if I wanted
to. I read what he wrote on the monument, and I just thought, 'No. I
cannot quit.' I have never been so humbled in my life."

According to the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada
(www.mssociety.ca/), the neurological disease attacks the protective
myelin covering of the brain and spinal cord, causing inflammation or
destroying myelin in patches. The cause isn't known. It most often
strikes people between 20 and 40 years old, with the average age of
diagnosis being 30. Women are twice as likely to develop MS as men;
about 50,000 Canadians have the illness.

Wikdahl started noticing symptoms in 1989. She had numbness and
tingling in her face and hands. She also had little energy and would
drop things or bump into walls. But for the next seven years, no one
could tell her what was wrong. Among the theories were that she had
fibromyalgia, arthritis, depression, and "attention-seeking
behaviour". Computed-tomography scans revealed nothing abnormal.

Finally, in 1996, her condition became so severe that a neurologist
ordered magnetic resonance imaging, which showed lesions--damaged
myelin--in her brain. She has tried to manage her multiple sclerosis
with drugs like Zoloft, lithium, morphine, Demerol, and codeine, but
she doesn't like their side effects. (People with MS are among those
who can legally possess marijuana in Canada for medical reasons.)

She experiences pain attacks and sometimes uses a cane or a
wheelchair, and her fingers tend to claw up. She says that although
some people aren't overly limited by MS, a common misconception is
that the disease isn't debilitating.

"A lot of people say, 'How bad can it be? You look good,' " Wikdahl
says. "Looking good is not an indicator of feeling good. It's an
invisible disability. Things like getting out of bed or using a remote
control become challenges. There are women in nursing homes who are 39
because of MS.

"A lot of people feel isolated," she adds. "Sometimes with this
illness, the spirit is willing but the body is just too weak. You end
up debilitated emotionally. When you keep going down, sometimes it's
just as easy to stay down."

The affliction can cause loss of balance, impaired speech, double
vision, muscle weakness and spasms, and paralysis, according to the MS
Society. It can also affect the bladder and bowel and cause problems
with concentration or judgment.

Researchers are looking at ways to regrow or repair myelin and are
studying why the immune system initiates the attacks on myelin. Some
are investigating the possible link between MS and common viruses, as
well as whether smoking is a risk factor.

As she nears the Pacific Ocean, Wikdahl says she wants to provide
others with the kind of motivation and hope that so many gave her over
the past several months. (She's also taking donations for the MS
Society and can be reached at 604-854-4067.) Her husband and kids
(aged 26 and 23) will be part of the welcome crew when she arrives at
English Bay. But her voyage won't be over. "I'm walking out of the
pain of the past," she says, "and into the joy of my future."