"I was running 20 to 32 miles a week," says Cynthia Gray.

Cynthia is a mother, a researcher and a runner. But three years ago the unexpected happened.

"it was a very hot summer and I was running," she recalls, "I'd gotten very hot and all of a sudden I was literally lying in a ditch out in the middle of nowhere. [I] couldn't move my legs, couldn't see. And I thought, 'Crap, this is not okay.'"

It was so scary that Cynthia quickly made a doctor's appointment.

"I walked out of the office that day with the neurologist saying, 'I think you have MS [Multiple Sclerosis]'."

Over time things slowly got worse, and her relapses became more regular.

"It was happening 5 and 6 times a year," she clearly remembers.

"At that point I thought what if I can't run? And then I thought, well I'm not going to let that happen," Cynthia says with a determined laugh.

Cynthia began searching for a solution, and she found one!

"It's plastic," explains Cynthia as she knocks her knuckles against her leg brace, "It's hard, it's rigid and it has hinges and serves as a spring to pull up the foot, which I can no longer really do on my own."

That's because she suffers from foot drop, a condition that makes it difficult to lift the front part of the foot. So it's easy for her to trip over her toes and fall.

"Immediately when I first got it, I stopped falling as much," she says.

Cynthia's ankle-foot orthotic is custom made. "We spent a lot of time with the first one refining it and getting it so it's light because it can get heavy. He drills out the back a little bit and it comes up higher. I really was amazed at how much they can do."

And it was her saving grace.

"I wear it all the time now. On days when I don't wear it, I'm done 2 or 3 hours into my day."

But that wasn't enough for Cynthia. After a rough year in 2007, multiple exacerbations that made it hard to even walk and five doses of chemotherapy, she had another plan.

"As I was realizing I made it through the holidays, and New Year's [Day] was coming, I thought, "Wouldn't it be really cool if my New Year's gift to myself was doing this thing'," she explains.

Cynthia made herself a promise: she would run 40 miles to celebrate her 40th birthday!

"I was amazed at how much support [I received]," she says while smiling and shaking her head. "A friend from here [Beloit College] said, 'I'll run with you!' And she did every step of the way."

They trained for four and a half months on the country roads and city streets of Beloit.

Then in May, she set out to turn her dream into a reality. In two days they ran 40 miles!

At the finish line: a big surprise from Cynthia's three kids!

"They'd each made a segment of a sign and they'd strung them together on a ribbon," she remembers fondly, "And then when we came down to the end and that last tenth of a mile, they strung it across so we got to break the ribbon. They were cheering. It was beautiful."

Cynthia finished not only for herself, but also to send a message to her kids and to others struggling with the debilitating effects of a disease.

"It's a mixed message," she explains, "The first message is the most important one. Don't let people tell you you can't do something because if it's important to you, you find a way to do it.

"But also to recognize that there are limits. You may not be able to do it like you could before, I can't run the way that I could before, but there's probably a way that you could do it.

"And ask for help. If I hadn't been willing to accept advice and help, I would've stopped running 2 and a half years ago and I would not have had this incredible experience."

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Cynthia's ankle-foot orthotic was made by Al Burke. His company information is:

Al Burke
Aljan Company
2008 Fish Hatchery Rd
Madison, WI 53713
608-257-4256

If you'd like to help the 10,000 people living with Multiple Sclerosis in Wisconsin, consider riding in the MS 150! It takes place the August 2 and 3. For more information, go to www.wisms.org

Our series continues next Thursday at 10.
Can drinking worm eggs treat M-S?
A look at a UW study hoping to improve the devastating symptoms of the disease.