The Beautiful Face of Andrea, Part I

Last year, during one of the final days of the Northern Tier ride, I sat down with Andrea Wilches, one of the cyclists with the Northern Tier group, and talked at length with her about how the ride impacted her life. Andrea joined the group when we reached Minneapolis, which is where we also enjoyed a rest day. During our stay there, we went to the Minneapolis MS Center to meet those who participated in the programs made possible in part because of the donation given by Bike the US for MS. My memories from that day I’ll always treasure; the people I met, both those with MS as well as those who care for them, the beautiful garden, and witnessing Andrea begin her journey to finding a way to accept that she, too, has MS.

Each day until the end of the ride last summer, I was constantly amazed by Andrea’s perseverance. She went into the ride with very little experience cycling long distance, and on the first day of cycling, not being completely comfortable with clipping into her pedals, she found herself with a nasty gash on her calf after getting tangled up. This mishap and others didn’t deter Andrea from continuing on the journey she signed up for.

More recently, in August, Andrea and I met out in Seattle, both of us having signed up for the Pacific coast ride. At the end of this ride, the night we camped at Carlsbad under a full moon, Andrea sat down with me again, humoring me with my questions about how her life has been impacted by the rides with Bike the US for MS.

This is the piece about Andrea from last summer, for those who may have missed it when it was posted in my Beautiful Faces of MS project. Within the next few days, check back to read the follow-up profile from this summer.

***

The Beautiful Face of Andrea, Summer 2016

“We see lesions, and we think you have MS.”

To then 28-year-old Andrea Wilches, this statement translated to, “I’m going to be in a wheelchair tomorrow.”

Now, three years later, Wilches, of New York City, knows differently. Now, after cycling the Northern Tier route from Minneapolis, MN to Seattle, WA, over 2000 miles, Wilches feels hope and see possibilities for her future.

An active individual, Wilches enjoys participating in running events. During a 10k three years ago, she experienced intense pins and needles down her legs to her toes. She also felt the pins and needles through her torso, as well as a sharp spark down her spine when she lowered her head. Wanting answers, she searched online for what might be causing her symptoms. What she found pointed to Multiple Sclerosis, so she made an appointment with a neurologist who ordered an MRI.

“The image (of the lesions on her brain and spine) is still hard to get out of my head,” Wilches confides as she sits on the floor of the trailer where the cyclists for Bike the US for MS store all of their belongings in what are referred to as “cubbies,” boxes big enough to hold a tent, a sleeping bag, a few changes of clothes, and other must-have’s needed for the two-month long cycling trip across the United States. “My immediate thought was life was going to change within the month. Things were just going to start happening.”

Like many diagnosed with a disease, Wilches began reading about MS, which she admits was probably the worst thing to do. She also talked with her neurologist, who confirmed what Wilches was learning from her readings: MS affects vision, MS affects mobility, MS affects language, and other functions we don’t think about until confronted with their loss. For Wilches, a lower school Spanish teacher who also knows Portuguese, the thought of losing her language abilities hit hard. “I love language,” she says. “It scares me to think about losing something I love.”

For the past three years, since being diagnosed, Wilches admits the MS has consumed her life. If her eyes get blurry, it’s the MS. If she stumbles, it’s the MS. Even the MS used to identify the middle schools throughout the city turn her thoughts to having Multiple Sclerosis. Much of this she kept to herself, with only her family and a few close friends knowing she was even dealing with an autoimmune disease. She was scared to talk about the MS out loud because that makes it real.

Deep down, though, Wilches knew she needed to come to terms with and own her MS. “I see it as a general theme of changing your narrative,” she says. “I thought my life was going to be one way. Then there’s a ripple. What am I going to do now? I could do the crying thing, which I definitely did. And I was kind of like ‘why me’? But I changed my mindset.”

That change in mindset began the day Wilches signed up to ride with Bike the US for MS. As a teacher with her summers free, Wilches likes to involve herself in opportunities to travel, share her teaching abilities with other cultures. For this summer, she had applied for and had been accepted to travel to Ghana where she was to help with a reconstruction project. However, she wasn’t feeling enthusiastic about going. “You know, I was like I really don’t want to do it.” So she stepped back and thought about what she does like to do.

Riding her bike came to mind, which led her to wonder, “What if I just biked across the United States?” This prompted her to begin researching cycling cross-country, and what she found fascinated her. “I didn’t know there were already so many people doing it. Whole communities,” Wilches says. Eventually, her online searching took her to Bike the US for MS. As soon as she began reading about the organization, Wilches felt a connection and knew she’d found what she wanted to do during her summer. She also knew in signing up for the ride she was going to have to confront having MS. She applied and was accepted.

The fundraising part of being a cyclist for Bike the US for MS forced Wilches to talk about her MS. She wrote her fundraising email, asking for donations to support her ride, but she didn’t send it right away. A few days passed before she found the courage to hit the send button. The response and support from friends was overwhelming. “So many people called me almost immediately, asking if I was okay. It felt great.” Wilches also felt relieved being able to tell her story.

On this balmy July evening in Withrop, WA, after cycling 71 miles for the day, with only a handful of days remaining until she arrives in Seattle, WA, Wilches smiles brightly and says, “I don’t think I would be where I am without this trip.” From meeting others also living with MS, like Rita who assured Wilches that 95% of the time everything’s good, and Marie whose smile and attitude more than made up for her loss of mobility, and the woman at the Minneapolis MS Center who asked that we all be her legs because she would have loved to bike across the US, Wilches has learned she has been given the gift of time and space to process through her spectrum of thoughts.

“This trip is teaching me to focus on the present,” Wilches says. “If it (the MS) beats me at one point, I’ll deal with it then. Right now, it’s too much to think about the what if’s.”

What she’d rather think about is how incredible it has been riding her bike across the United States. From seeing the open fields that make up the Great Plains to the climbs that have taken her up mountain passes, from meeting her fellow cyclists who are focused on helping raise awareness of what MS is, as well as those newly diagnosed with MS, Wilches fairly beams about how amazing it all has been. “It’s so hard to describe what’s happening to me. I feel a strength. I’m getting used to hearing about MS, saying the words out loud.”

After a short pause, while looking around the campsite where her fellow Bike the US for MS cyclists are sitting and chatting, Wilches says, “Yeah, it’s amazing. Like connecting the dots. Here’s a group of strangers who don’t have that much in common, but we all sat down and opened up the Bike the US for MS website. This one thing connected us all.”

For several seconds Wilches sits silently. Then, in almost a whisper, she says, “It’s gonna be okay. Yeah.”





Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Profoundly Sad Today and I Don't Know Why

Marigolds

Night Sky