Coping with childhood form of MS

DONNELLSON – Looks can be deceiving.

Stephanie Genck walks with a limp because her left side has lost a lot of muscle use. Her speech is sometimes impaired. She sometimes has lapses of memory.

All are characteristics of Multiple Sclerosis, a disease of the muscles that affects people from their 20s to 40s. But Genck is 13, and she has Schilders Disease, a rare childhood form of MS.

Because of the apparent physical limitations the disease has caused so far, it seemed better to ask what activities she can still do (read? watch TV? surf the Net?) instead of what she can’t.

“I like horseback riding, four-wheel riding, jet skiiing and camping,” said Genck, without mentioning anything sedentary, and then added as an afterthought, “I like archery, too.”