My name is Erika. I’m a single mama, a boutique concierge owner, and freelance writer. On April 1st, 2026, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. This diagnosis didn’t come out of nowhere. For years my symptoms were dismissed and misattributed — cognitive decline labeled as ADHD, muscle spasms explained away, neurological symptoms written off as anxiety. I was failed repeatedly by a system that too often refuses to take Black women’s pain seriously. When I lost sensation in the left side of my body, I finally got answers. Multiple lesions on my brain and spine. Active inflammation. This was not caught early. This had been progressing. And it arrived in the middle of the hardest season of my life. December. I was laid off from my primary source of income right before Christmas, then a stolen identity and fraud case I’m still fighting, in addition to the weight of being a single mom and caretaker. Then I found out it was even worse than I knew. After my diagnosis, I started researching everything I could about what drives MS progression. That’s when I truly understood what was happening in my body I live in what residents call Cancer Alley — a stretch of New Jersey saturated with industrial pollution, diesel exhaust, and toxic environmental load. Research is clear that this kind of chronic exposure drives neuroinflammation. Because I have MS, this changes my living situation into a disease modifier working directly against my ability to heal. And for my daughter Serena, who has moderate asthma, it means she is sick nearly every few weeks. I cannot heal here. We have to move. MS has changed everything. The debilitating pain, muscle spasms, crushing fatigue, numbness, and cognitive fog are now my daily reality. Managing this disease has significantly impacted my ability to work and earn while my medical needs have grown. Your support helps cover my medications, medical bills, specialist treatments, and now an emergency relocation away from an environment that is actively making my condition worse. Chronic stress triggers MS relapses. A toxic environment triggers MS relapses. Every dollar moves me further from both. Every dollar is medicine. Thank you for showing up for me so I can keep showing up for everyone who counts on me.
