Cindy goes out with a bang as the MS fight continues

LIHU‘E — What is multiple sclerosis and how does it affect me?

That answer can be found in a cookbook that served as a major fundraiser for Cyndi Edralin and the Hui Me Kapilialoha who turned in more than $10,000 for the Multiple Sclerosis Walk, Saturday at the Kukui Grove Center.

Mel Rapozo, one of the longtime organizers of the event, said overall, the walk generated just short of $12,000 with Maxine Correa, former Kaua‘i County Council member and mother of Cindy, being the individual with the most donations at $1,540.

“Our daughter, Cynthia Correa Edralin, continues her fight to combat this dreaded disease,” Maxine writes in the cookbook. “She has found that with early and ongoing treatment of Copaxone Shots and therapy, it’s made a tremendous difference for her and others who suffer from MS.”

Candice Schwalbach, the MS Hawai‘i Development Coordinator and Special Events, said more than 150 walkers turned out, braving the morning chill and representing several family and business groups whose members are affected by MS.

Among the first time groups, young paddlers from Kaiola Canoe Club were in the company of their coach Lori Parraga, anxious to get started.

“This is just some of the group,” Parraga said.

Schwalbach, whose husband Kevin was manning an inaugural MS event information table for the Big Island, welcomed all walkers.

“A continued effort must be made for Cyn as well as the 1000-plus folks in Hawai‘i with MS,” Maxine said. “We need to help raise monies for research and awareness so that someday soon, there will be a cure.”

Lyn Moku of the MS Society, in Edralin’s cookbook on ethnic main dishes, said MS interrupts the flow of information between brain and body and stops people from moving.

Every hour in the United States, someone new is diagnosed with MS, an unpredictable, often disabling disease of the central nervous system.

Symptoms range from numbness and tingling to blindness and paralysis. The progress, severity and specific symptoms in any one person cannot yet be predicted, but advances in research and treatment moves victims closer to a world free of MS, Moku states.

More people with MS are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 50, with more than twice as many women as men contracting the disease. Moku states that MS affects more than 6,400 people in Hawai‘i, 400,000 people in the United States and 2.5 million worldwide.

“In 2000, our daughter was told she had MS,” Maxine writes in the cookbook. “As months turned into years, we as family did what we could to make Cyn comfortable, watching how her MS progressed, seeing her in pain, stumble, drop items so much that she had to eventually retire from the Kaua‘i Police Department where she had worked for 18 years.”

Cyndi said, in a note in the cookbook, that having MS is like it is a battle every day, but you have to be a fighter and not give up.

“Those are words I used to tell my son and daughter, and now, I say it to myself,” Cyndi said. “After all, with God’s help, I plan on living a full life and being here for a long time.

“Although there is no cure for MS, there are medications that are available to minimize the chances of an attack. Very pricey, but we’ve managed. There is no guarantee, but anything is better than nothing. When you are in pain, you will try anything your doctor recommends. You have to have faith in him, and in God.”

As the date of the MS Walk drew closer, a note from Cyndy announced the inevitable.

“This will be my last year doing the walk,” Cyndi wrote in an e-mail. “My husband says I need to take better care of myself. I guess it’s hard for him to see what I go through daily.”

Rapozo, himself a staunch supporter of the battle against MS for many years, also noted that time is taking its toll and this might be his last year promoting and coordinating the annual walk.

“I was so happy our team reached our goal of $10,000,” Cyndi said. “We ended up with $10,700. I am so proud of them.”

Visit www.nationalmssociety.org for more information on MS.