What one sees in my picture is me, Wendy, standing on a mountain with a ridge of mountains behind me in the distance. What one does not see is the effort it took me to get there. No, I didn't climb, hike or even walk. There was a lift for tourists that did the hard work. I would love to be able to do things like that again without trepidation even if I am simply "lifted" to that height.

I have struggled with Multiple Sclerosis for a number of years. MS is an auto-immune disease in which the immune system malfunctions and attacks the body's own central nervous system. It destroys the myelin sheath which is a protective coating for one's nerves. This type of damage disrupts communication throughout the CNS. For me, these disruptions have caused intense muscle spasms, muscle weakness, blindness, inability to walk and a myriad of other things. This MS, in spite of medications, continues to get worse and worse and I'm ready to enter a new chapter in life. 

I have been accepted to undergo a stem cell transplant to beat my MS at Northwestern Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. I have done a lot of research and I'm ready to stop the progression of this awful disease. I want to literally walk away from MS.