TeamCharliesAngels

Well, tommorrow is Valentine’s Day. I don’t do anything for it anymore, myself. It seems that I have been married and divorced, and my daughters are grown up now. I will say Happy Valentine’s Day to them and my grandchildren, but that is the extent of it. I am thankful to see another day come around now. By the way, Happy Valentine’s Day, Dr. Lindholm! Wish I could say how great a doctor you are, but I don’t want you to get a big head.

For those of you that don’t know it, Dr Karin Lindholm is my neurologist in Boise. She is the best neurologist for me, but she may not be for everybody. I think she is one of the best there is, and every time I tell her what is happening to me, she has answers for me. If I chose to follow her advise, I seem to be happy with the results. This time it had to do with my lower legs cramping really bad. Dr. Lindholm said do some stair stepping, and do some light weights for my arms. It works! Sure wish I would learn to listen better, though. Thanks, Doc!, for your infinite patience with me.

Now for the next thing. I hear there are other people in the Chester, Ashton, St Anthony area of Idaho like me. That is, they have multiple sclerosis and don’t get out too much, and might even want to talk to other ms people? Wish I knew how to contact them! If anybody out there knows them, give them my email address, please… it’s charlie AT teamcharliesangels DOT com. I will send them my phone number to call me, and maybe we can get together sometime. I do some computer work on the side, and I even talk when I get over my fear of meeting them.

As most who read these blogs know, I like to think I am free as an eagle now. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen my eagles in a few weeks. Maybe with the weather changes we have, they have moved to another are to feed? It appears to be so, anyway. The weather here warmed up, and the ice and snow melted away rather quickly. My Grandson and I built a snowman in the yard one day. The dog got so mad at us, he went and took the carrot nose out and spit it on the ground! When my older grandson put it back in the snowman, the dog then knocked the head off the snowman and either ate it or rolled on it. Either way, the head disappeared that day, and the dog was much happier than he was while we were building the snowman!

I guess that’s enough for now. Hoping to hear from some local area ms people soon.

Charlie Kravetz
charlie AT TeamCharliesAngels DOT com

Since this website and TeamCharliesAngels exist to raise money for the non-profit National Multiple Sclerosis Society, we are always open to suggestions and assistance. We can use team members anywhere in the United States, who are willing to help raise money. We also accept donations and allow business to become sponsors through the MS Society. Approximately 78% of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s combined expenses are devoted to research, programs that actively help people with multiple sclerosis and their families, and to public and professional education; 22% is invested in MS Society management and the expenses of fund raising. Seventy cents of every unrestricted dollar stays in the community where it was raised. You can help!

Thanks to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the internet, I am able to keep informed about my disease. I have learned over time that the most correct and knowledgeable source of information is the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Perhaps that is why I tell people to get in touch with them so often.

If you want to help stamp out this disease, join this team and help raise money for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. To join TeamCharliesAngels, please sign up here: MS Walk participation website. The team name is TeamCharliesAngels,  or send an email to me.

If you would rather volunteer to help out at a fundraiser, please contact your local National Multiple Sclerosis Society office or check with the MS Society on-line: National Multiple Sclerosis Society - Idaho Division, All American Chapter.

If you or someone you know has multiple sclerosis, please contact the National Multiple Sclerosis Society or call 1-800 FIGHT MS (1-800-344-4867) to learn about ways to help manage multiple sclerosis and stay informed about current research that may one day reveal a cure.

This page is used to provide information to the team. Bookmark this page if you want. I will try to keep the information up to date. Photos will be published as soon as I have enough time.

Anyone got any ideas on how to raise money? Pass them along if you can. We need all the ideas we can get. Donation shoes are available for businesses to sell for donations. Let me know if you want them.

I’ve enabled read/write comments, feel free to leave a comment. I would prefer to say you do not need to register and login to leave a comment or write a short article, but the spam coming in prevents that. If you will register, you will be able to then write either a full page, a story or a paragraph and add it to this website. You can also leave comments anytime. Thanks for all the work.

The National Multiple Sclerosis Society is going to use email as much as possible. It does save them a lot of postage, which results in more money available for research. If they don’t have an email address, they will use the U.S. Post Office.

Shirts for 2006 were worn for the walk. We had Shadows Embroidery and Screen Printing and Moody’s Plumbing Service as sponsors on them. Team members can wear the shirts year round, which helps those businesses with advertising. We will be wearing new shirts for 2007. I heard that women would prefer shirts without pockets, so be it. That was easy, any other issues?

The 2006 MS WALK in Boise, Idaho was held on April 22. Due to flooding along the river, we had a change in the route at the last minute. We started in Veterans Park and walked towards the Glenwood bridge. Many thanks to all of the TeamCharliesAngels walkers. Five miles doesn’t sound very far until you are walking it, then it becomes an extremely long way.

We had 20 people on our team this year, and had a great time. Corey Barton Homes had golf cars on the route to assist those of us that needed a ride partway. I was able to walk half way this year, which was a big improvement over last year. After the walk, there were food and drinks available for the 600 walkers.

TeamCharliesAngels raised a total of $1756.00 in 2006. Way to go! I know we can do that and more this year. My legs are working again, kindof! I’m going to walk all of the 5 miles this year, God willing and allowing me to. If each team member raises $125, we can easily pass $2000.00. Let’s get started!!!

I’m hoping you are keeping notes and thinking about next year. Since we learn each year, there are a few areas for improvements. I can’t seem to keep track of everything, so a little help would be appreciated. I’ve changed the website, anyone can now add material to it. Just register and login. Otherwise, if you need help adding material, send the printed material to me, email or snail mail, I’ll get it on the website.

This web site will be here year round, so stop by and check it out. It is in a constant state of change, much like multiple sclerosis itself. How fitting that my disease and my website evolve together?

I’m Charlie. I built and designed this website. I have multiple sclerosis, and TeamCharliesAngels is the name of my support team (they really are angels). The angels logo was designed by my niece, Stephanie. It is the logo of this website and is displayed on the team shirts we wear during the annual National Multiple Sclerosis Society MS Walk fund raiser.

My email address is charlie AT teamcharliesangels DOT com… (please replace capital letters with the correct characters). Feel free to drop me a line or two if you want. I will respond if I don’t get swamped.

I may wander off topic sometimes, and I may brag sometimes, but that is the advantage of owning my website. Please feel free to email me with comments or contructive ideas. There will be a contact form for that, when I figure out how to put it together.

As an avid reader, after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, I went to the library to find books about this disease. What a surprise! The library had 3 books in the card catalog about ms, and the latest copyright was 1989. Next I hit the bookstores (in Las Vegas, Nevada) to buy a current book about ms. The best I could do there was a book written in 1998, if I wanted to order it. That’s when I found out how little was know about multiple sclerosis. I now have all the books I can find in print, all 11. Thanks to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the internet, I am able to keep informed about my disease. I have learned over time that the most correct and knowledgeable source of information is the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Perhaps that is why I tell people to get in touch with them so often.

I have often referred to multiple sclerosis as a disease of a very elite group. Since there is still so little known about ms, I did a great deal of research to learn about it. At various times, the symptoms are frustrating, frightening, aggravating, depressing, worrisome, ridiculous, unknown for both the victim and those around the victim. It is still a disease that falls into that group that most people prefer to ignore. If it makes you seem drunk, it is better for all around you to pretend you are drunk or that nothing happened than to accept that you are having serious medical problems that can’t be helped. Instead of trying to be helpful, people will often avoid you or treat you like a small child. No person with a health problem needs whispers and looks between you, we need you to accept what is wrong and try to help us when we ask. Since we may be unable to do much at various times, allow us to do what we can when we are able. As our muscles, vision, abilities fade, accept it and help us as individuals to accept it. When we say “I can’t do that today”, believe it. When we say “I can do that”, let us at least try, if you can. I didn’t say it would be easy. If this disease is difficult for family and friends to accept, it is much harder for the person with it. One of the most difficult words in the English language is H-E-L-P! It just doesn’t roll off the tongue when it is really needed by an otherwise or formerly independent adult!

Since any website that is trying to increase awareness of multiple sclerosis must attempt to at least give some information about this disease, I will try. I will not get into a great deal of details and will also use wording that I have found to be understandable by those of us without medical degrees. If you want to know the medical terminology and details, please go to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society website or to a medical site with definitions.

You can not catch multiple sclerosis from someone who has it. However, you could have it for many years before it is diagnosed. It is a chronic, often disabling disease that randomly attacks the central nervous system. You may have many attacks, and recover from them with no physical changes. Many of the changes are invisible simply because the nerves control the muscles. If the nerve becomes damaged, the muscle quits. If it is a leg or arm muscle, you lose the use of it. If it is not an often used and seen muscle, no one except you knows it.

A friend calls multiple sclerosis his designer disease, because the symptoms are many and varied. Seldom will two people with ms have the same symptoms. They range from severe fatigue, blurred vision, numbness in the arms and legs, muscle weakness. These symptoms may come and go, or they could become permanent anytime. There is no cure for multiple sclerosis, but there are medications that can slow the devastating symptoms, thanks to the many dollars given to research by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and others.

Many people seem to confuse this disease with muscular dystrophy. That is the disease that the Jerry Lewis telethon raises funds for. I support that effort as much as I can, but you are born with muscular dystrophy. At this time, multiple sclerosis seems to be different. Any person can get it, at any time in their lives. It has been diagnosed in children as young as 10 and in adults older than 50. The cause of multiple sclerosis has not been determined yet. Each year, the cause and cure get a little closer, thanks to the research funded by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and others.

As a victim of this disease, I have found that finding current information about ms can be difficult at times. In July of 2000 when I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, there were less that 350,000 ms patients in the United States. Since there is a relatively small number of people diagnosed with ms, there is not a great deal of exposure for the need for research into the cause and cure. As someone told me, the more widespread the cause becomes, the easier it will become to get donations. Most people will tell you they know of someone with multiple sclerosis, and it either disabled them completely, or they have no visible symptoms. Of course, sometimes they simply tell you that the person seems to fake problems often. They act like they have problems at different times of the day, but since they don’t have them all day, there probably is nothing wrong with the person. This very issue is what makes multiple sclerosis so difficult to diagnose and deal with. Perhaps an individual needs a wheelchair in the mornings, but can carry the wheelchair home within an hour or two! These symptoms are very difficult for both the multiple sclerosis victim and all the individuals around them.

For more information about multiple sclerosis, please contact the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. You may also want to check out one of the websites in the Friends & Resources. Please insure the information has been reviewed or updated recently. Information about this disease changes rapidly, sometimes monthly.

Here are a few books that are excellent at explaining symptoms and issues involved for the multiple sclerosis patient:

• Climbing Higher by Montel Williams; published by New American Library, January 2005
• Curing MS; How Science Is Solving the Mysteries of Multiple Sclerosis by Howard L. Weiner, MD; published by Crown Publishers, 2004
• Managing the Symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis, Fourth Edition by Randall T. Schapiro, MD; published by Demos Medical Publishing, Inc, 2003

I spend a lot of my time at home, just because I get so fatigued from my multiple sclerosis(ms). I was diagnosed in July of 2000. When they were running medical tests on me to determine what ailed me, they asked all kinds of questions. The more I answered, the more head shaking went on. When the doctor finally told me it was ms, it was a relief for me. Then I found out, all the questions and head shaking were because the symptoms were traceable back to high school! Even so, I found the best thing I could do was keep fighting. I had already spent 20 years in the U.S. Air Force, and I had completed my plumbing apprenticeship since I got out. Now I was a Journeyman Plumber, even if the pipe wrenches had become too heavy to lift.

I don’t know what other people do, but after finding out everything I could about this disease, I decided to fight as long as I could. I still do what I can, but the strength is not there anymore. I found out in 2003 that I could no longer work 8 hours a day and still maintain a life. If I work, I can put a TV dinner in the microwave for 3.5 minutes, eat, sleep, get up, and do it again. The hours take a heavy toll on me now. I take medication every day to help fight the effects of ms, fatigue, nausea caused by medication and disease, dizziness, motion sickness, pain inside my head and outside from nerves. What can I say?

Life is good! If you don’t do what you can while you can, you won’t get to later. Hang in there! Your life is what you make it become. Do a good deed today, even it is just a smile for someone that needs it. Say “hello” to the person that is down today, even it they can’t look up at you. Keep smiling! It’ll make you feel good, and help others feel good too.