Pictou County man fundraises for MS in honour of late wife

NEW GLASGOW, N.S. — Sheldon Patriquin has a goal he wants to reach and is hoping Pictou County will help put him over the top.
He’s been raising money for the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada since at least 2002 and since that year has raised $89,523.69 for the organization. This year he hopes to raise enough to push his combined total raised over $100,000.
For him, supporting the MS Society is personal. The disease took the life of his wife Shirley in 2008.
A busy hair dresser and mother, Shirley was first diagnosed with MS in 1996, but was showing symptoms in 1995.
“The very beginning was just tingling in her fingers and lower legs. She was a hair dresser and it got so she couldn’t properly style someone’s hair. We got to see a neurologist in Halifax.”
Testing revealed her condition.
“She was in the Victoria General Hospital and the rehab all of the summer and fall of both ‘95 and ’96,” Patriquin said.
Afterward she was able to return home with support from the VON.
“She lost the use of her legs right away,” Patriquin said. “Then eventually her arms and eyesight. She never lost her hearing and her mind was incredibly sharp right up until the second-last day she was alive.”
He admits it was hard watching her go through it all, but he said she rarely complained.
He recalls only twice her saying, “This is a hell of a way to live.”
“That was about as bad as her language ever got.”
Even after she passed away, Patriquin continued to fundraise for the MS Society. He desperately hopes to see a cure found. Right now, there is only treatment to help minimize the symptoms.
“It’s not going to happen without money,” he said.
He’s thankful for how supportive Pictou County has already been to him in the past.
If you’d like to help Patriquin reach his goal and support the MS Society, you can do so by visiting: http://mssoc.convio.net/goto/sheldonpatriquin or www.mswalks.ca and clicking the donate button. Cash and cheque donations are also accepted by contacting him at (902) 752-1913 or [email protected].
“I would think probably that everyone knows or knows of someone with MS. Probably with debilitating MS,” Patriquin said. “The only way we’re going to find a cure for these people is to keep working at it.”
The New Glasgow MS Walk will be held on May 26 at Glasgow Square Theatre. Registration is at 10 a.m. with the walk beginning at 11 a.m.