An Editorial By Montel Williams: "Walking an inch in my shoes" | Chicago Tribune
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By Montel Williams
Published October 31, 2006
"I awaken every morning--assuming that the spasticity that often claims my body has taken a night off--wondering what new or enhanced symptom multiple sclerosis will lay at my burning feet. Rather than exaggerating our symptoms, as misguided cynics have suggested, many of us living with neurological and other illnesses take great pains to hide our symptoms from loved ones, friends, colleagues--and that bitter group of people who believe that we somehow did something to deserve our suffering.

Many of us living with chronic illnesses, and I call us survivors, will do anything to appear "normal," to hold on to that last moment before we are greeted with sympathetic, knowing smiles or averted glances. Rather than exaggerating our symptoms, we squelch them with conventional and non-traditional medications, exercise, nutrition, bravado and sheer will.

The recent insults leveled at Michael J. Fox also are leveled at me, at the millions of survivors of various neurological scourges and a multitude of other illnesses. The poisonous invective from these cynics--politicians, pundits, journalists and their converts--are nails in the coffin of hope, that precious commodity that we survivors cling to when our (progressing) symptoms have us beaten down.

Stem-cell research holds promise for a multitude of illnesses including Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis, which Fox and I live with every day. And if embryonic stem cells, whose efficacy may be in dispute, offer us even one iota of promise, I'll take that iota. The other alternative is to do nothing at all. Not an option.

If the headline-grabbing cowards who mock the infirm had to walk one inch in the shoes of a survivor like Michael, like me, like the millions of others across this nation and the world, they would march, albeit unsteadily, to a different beat and support all stem-cell research. Basic common sense would demand it."