World MS Day is May 30, 2022, and the theme this year is connections. “The MS Connections campaign is all about building community connection, self-connection and connections to quality care.” The hashtag is #MSConnections. The theme of connections focuses on tearing down barriers to relieve loneliness and isolation, while the goal is “to advocate for better services, celebrate support networks and champion self-care.” Check out the World MS Days News link: https://worldmsday.org/news/ and keep up with the latest events on World Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Day Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/worldmsday.
I can’t believe it has been eight years since I shot this World MS Day 2014 video. The pandemic has changed some things for people with multiple sclerosis living in isolated communities. Using the school internet for doctor’s appointments is probably not one of those changes, and the speed of the internet in isolated communities like Thorne Bay, Alaska, is perhaps still too slow for live video in 2022.
Shift.ms is celebrating World MS Day by having users record videos or type messages on: https://www.videoask.com/ff6ei71ux?cmid=f7fddc2c-4352-4f3e-a6c1-1df004a3d14d. You can repeatedly record your answers with the computer camera until you like your results before submitting them. Join me in supporting their effort by answering these two questions: 1) I feel most isolated by MS when…, and 2) I feel less isolated by MS when…
Yesterday was a thrilling day for me. After his Mt. Denali climb, Aaron Linsdau (polar explorer and endorser of my book) snapped a photo of the bookshelf at the Once In a Blue Moose store in Talkeetna, Alaska. Go, Aaron!
My book (bottom left), The Call of the Last Frontier, is sitting next to Larry Kaniut’s Alaska Air Tales and his Alaska Bear Tales is on the shelf above it. Larry has been a best-selling Alaska author for decades. He endorsed my book and wrote part of the blurb. Seeing a picture of our books sitting next to each other on the bookshelf gave me a red-letter day!
When my husband and I began our twenty-year adventure in Alaska, I curled up on the couch in Nelson Lagoon and read Larry Kaniut’s books. I’m pinching myself. Thanks for the photo, Aaron!
For those of you who love flowers, here are a few photos from the Holland, Michigan’s Tulip Festival. It was an unusual 90-95 degrees. The tulips budded out on Sunday, May 8, but the heat burned many of the delicate flowers by Friday. My childhood buddy Phoenix Angelica-Rose and I saw them on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. We cooled off on the beaches of Lake Michigan in the evenings.
I visited Frankenmuth with high school pal Carolyn Miller. I love the covered bridge, the chicken dinner, shops, and the German bakeries.
Resources
worldMSday. “About World MS Day.” https://worldmsday.org/about/ (accessed on May 17, 2022).
