An MS Victim Fights Back

Dee Wynne, it appears, has it all: a Highland Park home, a hefty bank account, delicate good looks, an adoring husband, two healthy, happy babies.

The thirty-four-year-old Dal-lasite also has multiple sclerosis.

“I’d had symptoms for fifteen years but had never been accurately diagnosed,” she says. “I’d have periodic numbness, and I was told that was because of a pinched nerve. Sometimes one side of my face would be numb. Then my vision began to blur. Three times I even went temporarily blind. That time a doctor told me I had an inflamed optic nerve.”

Finally, in 1984. Wynne was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She was frightened, but determined not to give up. And so she decided to fight the disease on a battleground she could command: the fundraising circuit.

In April of 1986, after Wynne recruited a veritable army of friends, the Yellow Rose Gala to benefit MS research took place at the Plaza of the Americas. The ball raised $80,000 for MS research-quite a respectable sum for a first-time effort.

Plans immediately began for the 1987 Yellow Rose Gala. But Wynne was having problems that threatened her physically and emotionally. Her mother was killed in a car accident in May and after daughter Fallon was born in August. Wynne’s health began to deteriorate. In December she was hospitalized for chemotherapy, a step taken in only the most debilitating MS cases.

The chemotherapy seems to be working. Wynne is walking and can hold her babies without fear of dropping them. And she will chair this year’s Yellow Rose Gala along with husband Jimmy. The gala, with “A Celestial Evening” as its theme, will be held at the Plaza of the Americas Ballroom on April 24. Hopes are high that as much as $150,000 will be raised for research.

“You can’t avoid reality,” Wynne says softly. “I do sometimes stop and think. . .what if I don’t get better? And then I say, I’m going to beat this!”