Been There Blogs – Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
By Samantha Guerry

WHAT MY DISEASE TAUGHT ME ABOUT FEAR

Posted on May 23, 2008

 

To build a company from the ground up, you must be willing to accept – even embrace – risk. Successful entrepreneurs aren't less afraid of risks than everyone else. They just don't let fear stop them.

 

My MS has taught me a thing or two about fear. Over the past 15 years, I have had seven significant MS exacerbations. Most of these "attacks" impaired my ability to walk for months at a time. When my son was only a year and a half old, I had an especially severe lesion in my neck that partially paralyzed me from my neck down. I could not walk, type or button my clothes for several months. Just taking a shower and getting dressed in the morning was exhausting. Worse, I couldn't carry my baby boy. For a year, I went through physical therapy three times a week, endured several rounds of high-dose steroid infusions and began a strict dietary regimen. I felt like I was fighting for my life. And in a sense, I was. MS rarely kills, but it can deconstruct your life until you don't recognize it (or yourself) anymore.

 

Fortunately, the body can heal. Patience and perseverance paid off for me. Less than two years later, I took a ski lift to the top of a mountain in Solitude, Utah, not knowing if I had the strength or coordination to ski again. I cried on the way up that mountain because I was terrified, and I cried on the way down because I was ecstatic. That day I learned that anything is possible. If we don't challenge ourselves and take risks, we will never know what we are capable of. That day gave me the courage to start my own company.

 

Too many people believe they have to abandon their dreams when they face a serious diagnosis. They let the fear stop them. To change that, I started a nonprofit last year, the TurnFirst Foundation (turnfirst.org), to help people newly diagnosed with MS. In the first days and weeks after a diagnosis, TurnFirst.org provides the information, resources and support patients and their families need to alleviate the fear and confusion that often accompany their diagnosis. With TurnFirst.org, they are better prepared to take on the challenges of MS, advocate for themselves and set a hopeful course for their future.

 

Daring to hope for the best is a special kind of risk, but it is worth it. As Václav Havel once wrote, "Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out." Certainly, anyone who is fighting for something they believe in – an idea, a company, a dream for the future – understands that it is hope that carries us beyond fear to action.

 

Samantha Guerry is the founder and CEO of Sightline Marketing and Communications. sightlinemarketing.com

To comment on this blog, e-mail blog@pinkmagazine.com and enter "MS" in the subject line.

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THEY DON'T KNOW THE WHOLE STORY
Posted on April 1, 2008

If I ever write my autobiography, I will call it Speak Softly While Carrying a Big Stick. It suits me. I've been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis for more than 16 years and have walked with a cane for the past four. Not just any cane, mind you. Nothing industrial. If a cane is going to be my most prominent fashion accessory, then it had better be fashionable. I have a beautiful collection. My two favorites are a black one with a silver horse head that my father gave me, and one that hides a small flask of scotch. I don't drink scotch, but it makes me smile to know I have a little along for the ride.

It's a secret I keep to remind myself that when people see the cane, they don't know the whole story. They don't know that I was diagnosed when I was just 26 years old and newly married. They don't know that I used to climb mountains and spent a summer carrying a 50-pound pack 150 miles over Wyoming's Wind River Range. They don't know I have a beautiful 12-year-old son who thinks I can do (almost) anything. They don't know that I am the founder and CEO of a very successful marketing and communications firm. There is so much they don't know, but I see them stop and wonder as I pass by. Occasionally a young child will come right out and ask me, "Why do you have that?" And I want to lean in and whisper, "Because things don't always work out the way you plan them."

My company, Sightline Marketing, has been nominated as a "Best Place to Work" by a local business journal. Winning would mean a lot to me because, in some sense, that's exactly what I set out to create: a "best" place to work. I started my company as a way to create more Life/Work balance and give myself more flexibility to be with my son. One could argue that was a loony idea. Entrepreneurs are known more for hard-driving zeal than equilibrium. But it made sense to me at the time.

I never was good at multiple choice. There is always more than one answer. I never bought into the "career at all costs," and I thought the glass ceiling was a sad commentary on our society. I had no intention of being forced to choose between a life and a career. I wanted my job to work for me. Call it Gen X or call it plain stubborn, but if there wasn't a clear path for me then I would just make my own.

My friend Dede helped me start Sightline and is now my VP of operations. She laughs and rolls her eyes when she tells the story about how I was just going to "work 20 hours a week and spend the other 20 in my garden playing with my son." That was eight years ago, before the Georgetown office space, the staff and the big clients.

It was also before the cane. I've had two MS attacks since I started Sightline. They each took me out of commission for at least a few weeks. Both times my staff got thrown into the deep end and had to figure out how to keep our ship moving forward. They rose to the occasion and pulled together as a team. They learned to manage projects more independently. And I learned that it was OK to let them lead. In that strange way, my MS has helped me shape a better company and a better life. I learned to build a company that can walk on its own two feet – even when I can't.

And, yes, in fact, I do have the Life/Work balance I set out to create. Do I make sacrifices? Sure. Do I work late? Of course. Have I ever missed a special family event? No way.

Samantha Guerry is the founder and CEO of Sightline Marketing and Communications. sightlinemarketing.com

 

To comment on this blog, e-mail blog@pinkmagazine.com and enter "MS" in the subject line.