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Next week, I’ll be at the Lazy Bear Lodge in Churchill Manitoba in search of polar bears. It’s a dream trip, oddly enough bestowed upon me by none other than Montel Williams (yes, the bald, handsome black man who usually has a psychic named Sylvia on his show). I was on Montel this summer and had a very Oprah-esque moment.
I got the trip for having Multiple Sclerosis. Well, actually for running an adventure magazine and having MS. But, I feel a little guilty. I’m not in a wheel chair. I don’t walk with a cane. I can still see. In fact, I run / walk about twenty miles a week. I snowboard, rock climb, and lift weights. I direct the publications division of a company. I raise a three-year old energetic toddler at the age of forty-one. There’s not much I can’t do today that I couldn’t do five years ago when I was diagnosed.
Still, it doesn’t mean I don’t battle the effects of MS. Every single day, I’m reminded that I have it. But my symptoms are irritating and not debilitating. Thank God. So while part of me feels like an imposter, the other part says, hell yeah, take the trip. Because MS is sneaky and I don’t know what the future holds and I’d really like to be able to run away from the polar bears if I had to and maybe three years from now, I won’t be able to. So, I’m off to see the polar bears. And I won’t feel guilty about being able to walk and run and see. Instead, I’ll try to enjoy every second of it. Look for reports from me!
