Runner beating the odds says exercise slowed progression of multiple sclerosis
TIFFIN, Ohio (WJW) – Keep doing hard things — it’s a message a dedicated runner is sharing with anyone facing adversity.
Ellie Anderson is up before the sun running every day.
“Feeling my feet on pavement is just a wonderful feeling,” said Anderson.
It’s a feeling Anderson chased right after being diagnosed with a life-changing illness.
“I was getting on an airplane and started to lose vision,” Anderson said. “I didn’t know if I was having a stroke. I was only 33. I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2010.”
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Hope for a healthy future was not at the top of her mind at that moment.
“There wasn’t a lot of hope,” she said. “All the people that I knew with multiple sclerosis were in wheelchairs.”
Anderson, 47, a busy working mother and wife in Tiffin, decided to do everything in her power to live.
“I started to think, what if I’m not able to walk? What if I’m not able to run? So probably within two to three months, I went out and started running,” she said.
Perched on Anderson’s kitchen table, a slew of medals earned from each 5K, half marathon and marathon race from across Ohio and as far as California.
“I had never run more than a mile and then that mile turned into three miles, to five miles, to 13 miles, to 26.2 miles and I haven’t stopped running since I was diagnosed,” she said.
Throughout the years with each medal earned, Anderson said she thinks of her dad.
“The last thing I said to my dad before I got out of his car that day is ‘I’ll meet you at the finish line,'” said Anderson. “At mile five my phone rang, it was the LAPD. Horrifically, my father had suffered a medical emergency. I went back in 2016 and I finished the marathon so this one is the most important to me because I did it for dad.”
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Since then, Anderson, a patient at the Cleveland Clinic, has been focused on treatments, putting one foot in front of the other and running to keep the worst of multiple sclerosis symptoms away.
“I owe so much to the treatment that I receive at Cleveland Clinic,” Anderson said. “I don’t think I would be in the place I am today without the advancements that have been made in medications.”
Against all odds, more than a decade later, Anderson keeps running and said she cannot imagine the day when she won’t rise to meet the challenge.
“You can rise up or you can sit down, and I think my message is rise up,” she said. “Those medals in the background, encouragement to keep on going, keep collecting, keep doing. Every day is a gift. I always have the mindset, use your day… that’s what I try to do. Work, love my kids, love my husband and go out there and run.”
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