Mount Baker in Washington State

     This is a letter of hope to anyone who has or knows someone with multiple sclerosis.  I wasn’t aware that this could happen until I witnessed it happening to someone else with MS.  So yes, this is a true story.

     About twelve years ago and not long after my own MS diagnosis I was volunteering at a thrift store for animal welfare on Whidbey Island in Washington State.  The day I started I also found out that there was another volunteer who also had this yucky disease.  And she was much worse off then I was.  She described her disease as being responsible for her being blind in one eye and nearly blind in the other.  She had to use braces to walk and even then it was extremely difficult.  She said that she was always in pain and because of the numbness in both of her feet she hadn’t been able to feel anything in either foot for fourteen years.

     We talked quite a bit about our conditions so it didn’t surprise me when she came in one day and said that when she woke up that morning she felt different. When I asked what she meant by different she couldn’t really give me an answer other then she felt different.  Little did either of us realize the miracle that was about to take place.

     About two weeks after our conversation she was in a complete remission.  Her eye sight in both eyes had returned to 20/20.  She had full feeling in both of her feet and no longer needed her braces because she could walk just fine without them.

     When I asked my Neurologist about this he stated, “Yes spontaneous remission is possible, but it’s very rare, so I wouldn’t get my hopes up to much.”

     I was like, are you kidding, sometimes hope is all people with MS have.  And let’s put this into perspective.  If MS can turn itself off almost as fast as it can come on then that means that there is some kind of a mechanism controlling it.  And if we can find that switch then I could care less whether I have the disease or not as long as it stays turned off!

     And this gives me tremendous hope regardless of how rare it might be!

Bill Walker