Battling MS, Step By Step

Suzan Black, a married New Jersey mother of one, is a study in courage.

On her honeymoon in 1981, she experienced vision problems and numbness. One month later, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, the most prevalent neurological disease in America. It affects 400,000 people, mostly women, in the United States. There is no cure, but doctors think there will be some day.

Back in 1981, doctors had a simple suggestion for Black: Stay quiet.

"Just sit down and be quiet and be a good girl, and, you know, work, if it's not too much," Black recalls of their advice. "But no children, no exercise. Basically, you know, your life is over."

The newlywed gave her husband an out, but Bill Black says he never considered leaving, even as the disease began to progress and Suzan's physical abilities were compromised.

"There's a whole tape that runs in my mind with every step that I take," she says. "Because I don't want to trip. I don't want to lose my balance. It's a constant mental process that I have to go through."

Suzan worked on and off for three years, and at times she also battled alcohol. In 1987, she became pregnant. She waited four months before telling her doctors. Their reaction was not positive.

"They were looking at me like I'm not a good patient," Suzan recalls.

She was lucky. Her health was good throughout her pregnancy, and her son, Andrew, is 16 now.

"He's my pride and joy," she says. "I can't imagine our lives without him."

But Suzan took few other risks until her life crossed paths with Jimmie Heuga.

Like Suzan, Heuga, an Olympic skier with a bronze medal, was in his 20s when he contracted MS. He was stunned when his doctor told him to get off the slopes.

"He said you should really stay away from exercise," Heuga recalls. "The problem was, exercise is all I'd ever done."

He sat still for six years, and then, against doctors' orders, started exercising again. "I'd go, 'Well, I'm not sick; I just have MS,'" he says.

That attitude led to a revelation: exercise made him feel better - physically and mentally.

"Jimmie was really a visionary to say, 'No, this is a good thing,'" says Dr. Barbara Giesser, a UCLA professor of neurology who has been working with Jimmie Heuga's center for 10 years. Their "can-do" program teaches people with MS what they can do, instead of telling them what they can't do.

"Since Jimmie started the program 20 years ago, we actually have evidence-based data that proves to us what Jimmie instinctively knew, that exercise is good for people with MS," says Giesser.

Suzan learned that firsthand when she attended a "Can-Do clinic." After five days of physical testing and instruction, consultations and classroom lectures, Suzan and Bill came away with a new game plan.

"You may not do it the same as everybody else that doesn't have MS, " she says, "but that doesn't mean that you can't do it."

Suzan says one of the things she learned at the "Can-Do" clinic was to delegate responsibilities. She's hoping that will lead to a less stressful holiday season.

Meanwhile, The Heuga Center will conduct at least 20 programs throughout the country in the next year.