Fighting Back Hundreds Join Walk To Raise Funds For Ms Battle

Some walked, others leaned on friends or canes, a few followed more slowly in wheelchairs.

But hundreds who turned out for a fund-raising walk Saturday united on one path.

They all came to fight multiple sclerosis, a chronic and often disabling disease of the central nervous system that strikes more people in the Inland Northwest than anywhere else in the country.

“I want to get well,” said Ramona “Mona” Niblock, a 60-year-old Lewiston woman diagnosed with MS in 1986. “I want to be able to walk and run and ride a bicycle.”

Family and friends - wearing visors that read “Mona’s Misfits” - trailed in her wake as Niblock walked arm-in-arm with her sister, Marlys Blagden.

“I have a friend that has it, too,” said Blagden, a Bayview resident. “She rides horses for therapy.”

It’s a sad statement on the viciousness of the disease in Eastern Washington and North Idaho: Just about everybody knows somebody with MS. The region has the second-highest rate of the disease in the world.

Walkers Saturday raised money for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Sixty percent of the proceeds stays in the area; the rest goes toward research. Doctors hope to find a cure. For now, four drugs help patients ward off symptoms that range from fatigue to paralysis and blindness.

Held for more than a decade in Spokane, the walk was in Coeur d’Alene for the first time. There will be another walk in Spokane next weekend.

Basking in the balmy spring weather, several hundred people milled around the North Idaho College student union before the start of the walk. People could walk either two or five miles.

Several participants said the hometown location lured them.

Organizers said they were buoyed by North Idaho’s support.

“We’re impressed,” said Chris Polello, development director for the society’s Inland Northwest chapter. “It’s a bigger turnout than we expected this year.”

Rathdrum teen Brant Lafrenz walked in memory of his late grandmother, who had MS. Leslie Allen, of Spokane, walked with a pair of golden retrievers to honor the MS patients she befriended while working at a nursing home.

Many local companies pitched in, too, Polello said: pizza from Papa Murphy’s; ice cream from Schwann’s; drinks from Pepsi - even free port-a-potties and Dumpsters.

“That doesn’t happen in every town,” she said. “This community just comes together. It’s great.”

This sidebar appeared with the story: IN SPOKANE Next walk

Another National Multiple Sclerosis Society Walk starts at 10 a.m. April 9 at Spokane Falls Community College. Walkers can choose routes of two, five or 10 miles. Anyone can participate, but those who raise $75 in pledges will earn a T-shirt. For more information, call (509) 482-2022 or (800) 726-2826.