When I was first diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2017, I was humbled to my core. I was a recently married, first-year graduate student, and I was getting by, but then numbness started in my right foot. It slowly progressed up to my waist and then down the left leg. I slowly started developing a foot drop and dragging my leg, which resulted in needing to have a cane to get around. I couldn't drive, I struggled to read, I was falling frequently, I had to drop classes, and I had to extend the length of my Master's program. I had to learn to ask for help and rely on my wife, my friends, and my family.

I started on a DMT, and the symptoms started to calm down. I started walking again, reading again, and getting back to a "normal" way of life. Then I started running, and in the beginning, I couldn't make it around the block without stopping. It was less than a mile. I stayed with it though, and haven't stopped running since. I have been so fortunate that my body has been able to go the whole way to a 31-mile ultramarathon. 

I know how lucky I am every time I have to go to the Clinic and I walk through the halls with all the other patients with MS. Some like me appear to be living a "normal" life with minimal disability. Others are not so fortunate. I can still see the face of one guy whom I passed in the hall at the Clinic one morning a year after my initial relapse. He was my age, walking with a walker, and an older woman was aiding him. You could see the frustration in his eyes. That look of frustration I knew all too well a year before, and I was just the fortunate one who bounced back. I know that it very easily could have been the other way around. It's a constant fear that I have come to terms with. I know that one day I could wake up and my legs won't work again, and until that day, I refuse to take that ability for granted.

That's why I am running 153 miles over 6 days next summer with MS Run the US and fundraising $10,000. Six days of suffering is nothing to those who spend a lifetime with this disease, and if I can help to raise funds for research, help provide financial aid to those who need it, and raise awareness, I feel obligated to do so. I can’t do it alone, though, and I need your help. It’s a big goal, but I know with your help, I can achieve it!