On World MS Day, 43-year-old mum-of-three Megan Healy will complete her lawnmower ride from Melbourne to Sydney. As one of the 23,000 Australians affected by the disease Megan is aiming to raise $50,000 for MS research. She shares her story with The Weekly.
Megan Healy was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1996, but she wasn’t “struck down” by the mysterious disease until ten years later.
After recovering from an initial attack that would forever affect her nervous system, the then 27-year-old continued to live life virtually unobstructed.
“I played tennis, rode horses, played Oztag, and manage to have three children in that time,” she says.
“You wouldn’t really have known that I had MS, apart from the odd attack and massive amount of fatigue.”
In 2007, a severe attack affecting Megan’s spinal cord left her legs to get progressively weaker until she lost mobility, and like many of the estimated 23,000 Australians MS affects, she was left wheelchair-bound and “unable to do anything much, really”.
The thing that sets Megan apart from others isn’t just her fighting spirit — many people with debilitating diseases have that, she’s quick to point out — but that she’s found a unique way to use her experience with MS to help raise awareness for the disease that many Australians lack understanding of and has perplexed even the medical community since its discovery, and she’s also found a way to get around and keep active despite losing most of her ability to move.
When I go to call Megan for our interview I’m not sure if she’s going to pick up. I’ve been warned about this. She can’t always answer, you see, as she needs to find a safe place to park her ride-on lawnmower.
In the lead up to World MS Day, she has embarked on “Megan’s Great MS Mowdown”.
Over the space of two and a half weeks she’s driven her big red mower from Melbourne to Sydney through a number of towns, stopping at schools, community centres, and even a pit stop at parliament house.
Never one to let being wheelchair-bound get in the way of getting around, the ever-restless Megan wanted to do something to not only raise money and awareness for MS but show what people with disabilities can do, and a cross-country lawnmower ride was quirky enough that it just might work.
“It’s my legs on wheels,” she says of the mower that gives her the ability to move around her NSW property and keep up with her kids, and is now also a vehicle for MS awareness.
“The ultimate goal is to raise $50,000 on the ride, but also I just wanted to raise awareness and let people know that there’s lots and lots of people living with MS,” she says.
“And showing people that even though you have a disability, there are plenty of things you can do.”
Since being struck by MS, Megan has noticed a real lack of understanding surrounding the disease, and by speaking at schools and getting attention on her mower ride, that’s something she aims to tackle.
But there are three young people in Megan’s life who truly understand what it’s all about.
“My kids (8, 11 and 14) are amazing,” she says.
“They’re basically my carers. Part of the point of the Mowdown is to show them the old me, because I’ve been in a wheelchair since before they can remember, and this is showing them their mum going out and being a doer, being active.
“Providing adequate care for people with MS is a huge part of the problem, and part of what I want to do is let carers, especially young carers, know what a fabulous job they do and how much it means to the person they’re caring for.”
Megan’s daughter says that her mum is showing people that even if you’ve got a disability you can do anything, but unfortunately that’s not the case for many sufferers of MS.
“MS is different for everyone, but it can be really, really debilitating,” she says.
With more research and a greater understanding of MS, and maybe even a cure, Megan hopes that sufferers in the near future will really be able to do anything and not have their lives obstructed by the disease.
Today is Kiss Goodbye to MS day and the final day of Megan’s Mowdown. You can support Megan’s Great MS Mowdown here and visit her facebook page here.
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