MS sufferer keeps her feet on ‘positive path’

In 1999, life delivered Glenna Miller Travers a one-two punch.

That February, she discovered she had multiple sclerosis, a disease of the central nervous system. In July, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.

MS Walk in Snohomish

The MS LifeLines MS Walk will be 8:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday in Snohomish. The 7-mile walk starts and ends at the Machias Trailhead on the Centennial Trail, 1624 Virginia St.

Another walk sponsored by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s state chapter will be 8:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Sunday at Husky Stadium in Seattle.

For more information, go to www.nationalmssociety .org/was.

“Cancer treatment went on a whole year, plus I was losing function from the MS,” the Marysville-area woman said. “I thought it was a death sentence. It was pretty tough.”

Tough doesn’t begin to describe that time, but six years later, Travers is cancer-free. “If there’s any feeling of ‘Why me?’ it’s probably because of the MS,” she said.

Travers was once a downhill skier, a runner and a sailor. She rode horses and had a human resources career at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

“MS is not a disease that hits you all at once,” she said. “You have the opportunity to adjust to the gradual losses.”

Sitting in her spacious new home north of Marysville, Travers relived the last day she was able to ski. At Stevens Pass several years ago with her husband, Gerry, she felt her legs firmly anchored by her boots.

“We went up the mountain, and my husband and stepson were saying, ‘You look great.’ Halfway down, I had to tell them, ‘I’m totally out of control.’ I had no balance. I haven’t skied since,” Travers said Wednesday.

Photo courtesy of Glenna Miller Travers

Glenna Miller Travers of Marysville will be the honoree at the MS LifeLines MS Walk in Snohomish on Saturday.

At 55, Travers still has the look of an athlete. She’s not the athlete she once was, but three to four times a week she works out with a personal trainer at the Marysville YMCA.

“I don’t run, but I do weight-bearing exercises, use a stationary bike and the elliptical machine. I have to keep moving to keep moving,” she said.

Travers will be in motion on Saturday as the Snohomish honoree at the annual MS LifeLines MS Walk hosted by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s Greater Washington Chapter. Fundraising walks are Saturday in Snohomish and six other cities, and Sunday in Seattle.

Travers, who is on an MS Walk team with family and friends, will be on foot for part of the walk, but will be pushed in a wheelchair for much of it.

In 1999, she learned she had a progressive type of MS. She now walks with a cane, has lost the use of her left hand and arm, and has double vision in one eye.

The first sign was tingling in her left arm. Because she had suffered seizures a decade earlier, Travers suspects she may have had MS years before she knew it.

Since she’s known, Travers has stayed as active as possible. “I hang in there. I have an extremely supportive husband and kids,” she said.

When they married, she had two children and her husband had four. Together, they have six grandchildren.

In 2002, they embarked on a yearlong adventure. They transported their 40-foot trawler across the country to take a cruise known by boaters as America’s Great Loop.

The route circumnavigates the eastern part of North America, across the Great Lakes, down the Mississippi and other rivers, around the Gulf of Mexico and up the Atlantic seaboard. “We went 6,500 miles. It was an endless summer,” Gerry Travers said.

They once had a sailboat, but MS caused balance problems. Travers appreciated the protected waters and easier cruising on the loop voyage.

She’s been involved in the MS Walk since the year she was diagnosed. Last year, more than 6,300 participants raised almost $1.3 million in area walks.

“I’m a big believer in research,” said Travers, who takes an injected MS drug and jokes about “better living through chemistry.”

“I’ve been active in the MS Society and the breast cancer Race for the Cure. I just want to be on a positive path,” she said.

“MS is an autoimmune disease, like Parkinson’s or lupus. I think they’re just on the brink of finding some kind of connection, some new drug.”

The Traverses’ new home still has boxes to be unpacked, not due to illness but because of recent trips to the East Coast and Hawaii.

Travers can no longer run or ski, but she travels, walks, works out and volunteers. These days, there’s more time to write poetry, take photographs and use the computer.

“I haven’t lost brain power,” Travers said. “My neurologist once told me many MS patients have such a positive outlook they’re not good at telling what’s bothering them.

“I’m not going to stop having fun because I have this little issue,” she said. “There is life after MS.”

Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.

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