Trekkers

Hello everyone!

My name is Marc Gaspar, born on 2 February 1962. I have been living in Charneux, a charming little village near Herve since 1990. I am married and have three children: Coraline, Aymeric, Alois.

My first rendez-vous with MS was on 21 September 2009. I was seeing double. The second one was on a weekend, on 20 February 2010, when my eyesight played up again for two to three days. The third one, I am still waiting for. I have got time to wait, I'm in no hurry.

So with this first outbreak on 21 September 2009, I was seeing double, I spent ten days in hospital, had my eyes tested, MRI, scanner, blood test, MRI of the spine, lumbar puncture… the whole caboodle. On 2 November, my neurologist at the time spent just about 10 minutes to give me the news: "You have MS. There is no treatment, only steroid injections in case of outbreaks."

At the beginning of 2010, I met up with the MS French-speaking League, and I attended meetings that gave me a fair amount of information on what kind of future I could expect with this disease, and I knew then that not everything was lost yet. Thank God! I saw another neurologist who took the time to explain to me the development of my illness and the results of the tests I have been given. Since the beginning of September I have been on Rebif 44, with maximum dosage when we walked up the Baraque Fraiture mount (630 meter high). Going onto such high dosage was painful, with many sleepless nights for two months, which is very taxing physically and nervously.

Now I'm sleeping fine, especially Monday nights after our training session with Fabienne from TC Forme. The preparation for our trek is going very well.

With the travel, I hope to meet people who are in a similar predicament, to find out how their life with MS is. Visiting a region in a context such as ours must offer a more constructive dimension than travelling as a tourist. I would also like to tell people that an illness as unpleasant as MS still does not stop us from living, from discovering, travelling, meeting people, even if it's not always plain sailing.

My job is to make Belgian roads more easily practicable for cars (I lay tarmac on the road surfaces), and I believe we won't go without work this year, if our ministers grant us the budget, that is.

My leisure time is nicely filled with intense training for Morocco on Mondays; sport with my "two-times-twenty-year-old" group on Tuesdays (we try out team sports); I like to go motor biking at the weekend with my mates. I also like to take part in competitions with RC cars organised by the shop reducta. And I spend what's left of my leisure time driving the kids and watching them do their own sports: Coraline plays basket ball, Aymeric roller-hockey and Alois kin-ball. That keeps us nicely busy at the weekend.

Thanks to all the people who dedicate themselves body and soul to help us with this project. We'll see you again on 12-13 February.

See you soon,

Marc

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