Multiple Sclerosis

Anna Whetstone, 23, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when she was 17. She was a high school junior in Hershey, Pa., playing on her school's field hockey team when she got hit in the head with a ball. "I was feeling fine at the time," she said, but over the next few days she had trouble with balance and "wasn't feeling well overall. " Computed tomography scans and an MRI discovered the telltale lesions that are signs of the degenerative disease. After the diagnosis, Whetstone switched from playing to coaching field hockey, but she continued dancing and she earned a neuroscience degree, with honors, at Moravian College in Pennsylvania.

Anna Whetstone, 23, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when she was 17. She was a high school junior in Hershey, Pa., playing on her school's field hockey team when she got hit in the head with a ball. "I was feeling fine at the time," she said, but over the next few days she had trouble with balance and "wasn't feeling well overall. " Computed tomography scans and an MRI discovered the telltale lesions that are signs of the degenerative disease. After the diagnosis, Whetstone switched from playing to coaching field hockey, but she continued dancing and she earned a neuroscience degree, with honors, at Moravian College in Pennsylvania.

The table centerpieces in the Marriott Waterfront ballroom were composed around NFL footballs. Baltimore Ravens head coach Brian Billick and NASCAR driver Kelly Sutton were the evening's honorees. It all signaled another winning "2001 Dinner of Champions" for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Maryland Chapter. Event chair JR Paterakis got into the spirit, as he coached (or was it coaxed?) some of the 600 guests into the ballroom for the award presentations and dinner. Among those following the game plan: David Modell, event co-chair; Frank Glorioso and Steve de Castro, event committee members; Steve Zentz, MS Society, Maryland Chapter board chair; Mark Dumler, John D. Ryder, James Little, Dr. Ken Johnson, Kevin R. Oster, Chris Scholtes and Tim Zulick, board members; Rick Smith, chapter president; Lynn Brick, Brick Bodies president; Bill Hellmann, RK&K Engineers partner; Grant Grasmick, Grasmick Lumber Co. president; Dr. Joyce Burd, York, Pa., rheumatologist; Dr. Peter Calabresi, University of Maryland Medical Center MS specialist; Krissy Edell, Comcast SportsNet senior account executive; Bruce Dunham, Morgan Stanley senior vice president; Alex Reynolds, H&S Bakery account manager; Dave Kelley, Aggressive Internet president; Brooke Ewing, Ralston Purina account executive; Tim Brown, Shoppers Food buyer; and Jim Austin, Buck Distributing Co. special projects manager.

More than 500 participants came together last Sunday, April 21, for Walk MS Aberdeen to raise funds and awareness for all those affected by multiple sclerosis. The walk was held at the Ripken Stadium and is expected to raise $60,000, according to the National MS Society, Maryland Chapter.  "Walk MS is all about communities joining together to do something about multiple sclerosis NOW," said Mark Roeder, president of the National MS Society, Maryland Chapter. "MS is the number one disabling disease among young adults.

Current volunteers' news and needs:Multiple Sclerosis Society wants volunteers for its Super Cities Walk in Towson. Volunteers should meet from 2 to 4 p.m. March 23 in the conference center at Sheppard Pratt for orientation and training. Contact the society at 821-8626.United Way of Central Maryland's 1990 campaign took in a record $31,950,170, a 3.4 percent increase over 1989. The UN referred 2,500 volunteers to non-profit organizations as well as forming a Corporate Volunteer Council, a coalition of businesses which share employee volunteers for community service projects.

Scientists said yesterday that two experimental drugs reduce the flare-ups that blur vision, upset balance and impede the movement of people afflicted with multiple sclerosis -- a common neurological disease that only recently was considered untreatable.A national trial involving one of the drugs, copolymer-1, was directed by the University of Maryland.Producers of the two drugs plan to ask the Food and Drug Administration next year for commercial approval. Last year, the FDA approved sales of the first drug, Betaseron, ever to show progress against the course of the disease.

The Bowie/Crofton Multiple Sclerosis Support Group will meet at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Adult Day Care Center of Bowie, 3112 Belair Drive. A speaker from the White House staff will discuss the Clinton health plan. The group meets the first Thursday of each month.For information, you may call 721-1537 or 793-3896.*St. Stephen's Church, 1110 St. Stephens Church Road, will hold its annual spring dinner from 2:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Saturday. The menu will include baked ham, turkey salad, potatoes, string beans, corn pudding, a cranberry mold, rolls, peach shortcake with whipped cream and beverages.

WHEN DONNA Goonan attended the National Multiple Sclerosis Society's Maryland chapter volunteer awards ceremony in October, the last thing she expected was to hear her name announced as MS Family of the Year. "I was just very surprised," Goonan said, admitting she didn't pay much attention to the listing of the winner's accomplishments because she figured someone else had won. "I just assumed that all families did that." But, according to society employees in Hunt Valley, the Goonan family's dedication to the organization, and each other, is far from ordinary.

The link between Julie van Hemert and Adam Malinda began as one kind of nourishment and has grown into another.Van Hemert, a Meals on Wheels volunteer for nearly a decade, has delivered dinner every Tuesday for four years to Malinda, a multiple sclerosis sufferer who spends most of his waking hours in a wheelchair.But over the last eight months, van Hemert has been feeding Malinda in another way: She has served as his mentor in sculpture, bringing him books and magazines about the art, sharing her expertise and encouraging him in the craft.

Feel lucky? Want to donate to a worthy cause? Wish you could go to Atlantic City but don't have the time? The Golden Flame Restaurant on Route 175 in Odenton is hosting a Mini Bull Roast and Atlantic City Day from 1 to 8 p.m.Oct. 21. Tickets are $12 per person and include a buffet with ham, sausage and beef, all prepared on an open pit, plus potato salad, cole slaw and all the trimmings.All types of games of chance and money wheels will be on hand for you to try your luck, with all of the proceeds donated to the Maryland Chapter of the Multiple Sclerosis Society.

Judith S. Campbell, a retired commodity futures broker, died of multiple sclerosis Monday at her Parkton home. She was 61. Judith Sheffield was born in Baltimore and raised in Rosedale. After graduating from Overlea High School in 1969, she earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from what is now Towson University. While living in Denver, Mrs. Campbell became a licensed commodity futures broker. In the 1970s, she joined Campbell & Co. in Baltimore, which had been co-founded by her husband, Kevin B. Campbell, in 1972.

Carol R. Hill, a former bartender who was working as an artist, died Oct. 3 of undetermined causes at her home in Triangle, Va. The former 20-year Fells Point resident was 51. Ms. Hill had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis about five years ago, her sister said. "We are waiting for the results of an autopsy and have been told that it may take up until 12 weeks," said her sister, Sharon Bohon of Skippack, Pa. The former Carol Read was born in Shelbyville, Ind., and was raised in Center Valley, Pa., where she graduated in 1978 from Southern Lehigh High School.

Dr. Kenneth P. Johnson, former chairman of the department of neurology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and an internationally known expert on multiple sclerosis who developed new treatments for the disease, died Saturday of cancer at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. The Lutherville resident was 79. "Ken was a visionary in the field of multiple sclerosis and where it was going and developing new therapies. He will be remembered as a very kind person who was wonderful with his multiple sclerosis patients to which he was totally devoted to curing," said Dr. Christopher T. Bever, a longtime colleague who is a professor of neurology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and chief of the neurology service at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Baltimore.

After reading Mike Gimbel's letter about medical marijuana ( "As dangers become clear, states shy away from medical marijuana," Feb. 15), some clarifications are in order. Contrary to his assertion that "the state of Montana voted Thursday to repeal the state's six-year-old medical marijuana law," no such vote occurred. In reality, the Montana House voted along party lines to repeal the law. The Senate has not done so, and in fact is considering legislation that would expand on the law and bring needed reforms such as statewide regulations on dispensaries.

Dorothy T. Schultz, a former environmental engineer who had worked for the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt and later for Howard County, died Jan. 20 of complications from multiple sclerosis at St. Elizabeth's Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Southwest Baltimore. The longtime Glenwood resident was 61. Dorothy Toohey was born in Baltimore and raised in Roland Park. She was a 1971 graduate of Notre Dame Preparatory School and earned a bachelor's degree from Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia.

Joyce L. Green, an educational television specialist and a former Maryland Public Television producer, died Dec. 6 of complications from multiple sclerosis at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium. The longtime Cockeysville resident was 63. Ms. Green was born in Baltimore - the youngest of five sisters - and raised on Beaumont Avenue in Govans. After graduating from St. Mary's parochial school in 1960, she attended Mercy High School and was a member of the school's first graduating class in 1964.

Mel Buckowitz has been stung by bees about 400 times in the past two months.Mr. Buckowitz is not the victim of an incredible streak of bad luck, but the willing recipient of stings for medicinal purposes.Except for a seven-month period, he has been stung 10 to 15 times daily since December 1991.Mr. Buckowitz, 58, of Randallstown, subjects himself to this regimen in an attempt to treat the multiple sclerosis that has weakened his body for the past 11 years.And he says it works.Since he began to get stung, he says, his condition has improved dramatically.

Martin Goren, a former banker and owner of the Homewood Deli who was a tireless advocate for people with multiple sclerosis, died Wednesday of the disease at Union Memorial Hospital. He was 55 and lived in the Tuscany-Canterbury section of North Baltimore. While in his 30s, Mr. Goren began noticing blind spots, which later were diagnosed as the first symptoms of MS. Within 10 years, his body had been taken over by the disease. "He was deprived of the use of his entire body. He could not move even a finger and was confined during the last decade of his life to a bed," said Louis Berney, his brother-in-law, who is director of media relations for the University of Baltimore.