I am over the moon! (Danni may not be) to be doing this challenge with one of my closest and best friends! We will be walking 100km, continuously, across the Jurassic Coast on May 14th, starting at 7am sharp! Our aim is to do this in 20 hours, 5km an hour, seems achievable right? We hope so! This event and charity holds a special place in both our hearts as well we also love to put ourselves through eventful and interesting walks … So why are we doing it? MS is a lifelong disease with no cure. Its effects differ dramatically person to person, there are those that can live a close- to- pre diagnosis life and those that are wheelchair bound or worse within months. Many people have not heard of or know very little about MS, and even with all research going there is soooo much still to learn. Not only are we doing this to raise money for a charity that supports those that are suffering from MS, we’re here to raise awareness across our friends and family and hopefully have fun during our walk! Maximilian Friedli, my Opa suffered with Multiple Sclerosis. Growing up I saw the worst of what MS can do to someone. Unfortunately his Multiple Sclerosis took away his ability to communicate with family and friends as well as his mobility. I am lucky in the sense that I only have good memories of my Opa, as well being fortunate enough to hear about how kind, generous and patient he was, and would do anything for anyone. In the last few years, my uncle on my mums side has now been diagnosed with MS, which has take around 6 years to be diagnosed. Now that I am aware of the realities of how this disease can transform someone's entire life is frustrating. Having worked very hard and also having created a wonderful family home and also having to put up with a number of females in the family (very outnumbered!) That provide plenty of kindness, laughter and support to my Uncle Mark. Danni: My mum was diagnosed nearly 15 years ago, when I was 12. It took a year to reach a diagnose and is thought this highly debilitating autoimmune disease was triggered by a cold. Symptoms vary and diagnosis is hard for her specific MS type, and for the first couple of years you may never know she had it. Relapsing- remitting MS, is one of the four types, the one my mum has, it means that the person with it will relapse, they will acquire a new lesion, and where ever in the body the lesion has damaged, there will be transient short term effect such as paralysis, vision loss, incontinence, speech loss, etc, the symptoms mostly will get better or will minimally effect the person; though they will never regain 100% function. A lesion in this context is seen on a mri as damage to spinal nerves or the brain. The immune system of someone with MS, damages a part of the nerves that allow your brain to communicate with your body. This carries on until the next relapse and thus next lesion(s).For each relapse, you can expect a new lesion, or a few new ones. The disease and symptoms then slowly progress with each relapse… Without support, awareness and money for essential research on MS, my mum wouldn’t have had access to the different treatments shes tried and tested. In nearly 15 years she’s had to change treatment 5 times, as none of the previous ones had slowed her progression, or they were causing many other unwarranted side effects. For the first time in 15 years, she’s had no progression from the previous year, no new lesions on her mri. This is huge for her, me and our family. Her current treatment has only been licensed for 4 years, new treatments for ms are still becoming available and it is essential for more to become available, as not one treatment works for everyone, and there is currently a lack of treatments for the other types of MS. The MS Society is a wonderful and amazing charity which allows the ability to fund research, new technologies and treatments to fight this disease. Some have been lucky to have found treatments that work, however some there are no known treatments to ease with MS. The charity also help to organise local events and national events for those who are a part of this community which supports those mentally, physically as well as provide useful information and best of all friendship.