Trevor Frey/Daily News About 100 people participated Saturday in the Multiple Sclerosis Walk, which began at Greenview Regional Hospital and wound through the surrounding neighborhood for 2.5 miles.

Tammy Martin is a woman with goals. Saturday, her goal was to continue walking with the group of about 75 participants in the 2005 Multiple Sclerosis Walk.

She opted not to take the easier option of jumping in the car with a nearby police escort for a quick ride to the end, despite the fact that sun and heat exacerbate the disease she has been battling for three years.

“Can we keep on walking? Are we going to keep going?” Martin asked worriedly as she approached a halfway point where walkers were pausing for a brief water break.

Though by no means the leader of the pack, Martin finished the course, surrounded by six supporters wearing matching yellow T-shirts that read, “Tammy Martin Fighting MS With Family And Friends.”

Inspired by Saturday’s gathering, the 35-year-old Bowling Green woman has a new goal – to establish the first MS self-help group in town.

“I’m willing to do whatever I have to do to get it started,” she said. “There’s no support group around here. I could talk to my sister 24/7, but she doesn’t have (MS).”

The importance of such self-help groups cannot be overestimated, according to Doug Dressman, chapter president of the Kentucky Southeast Indiana chapter of the National MS Society.

“It’s very important – MS is very different for each person, but there are certainly enough similarities for people to meet and talk it through,” Dressman said. “MS is one of those diseases people tend not to talk about openly, so often when (MS patients) come together in a group like that, it’s one of the only times they’ll really open up and talk about what they’re going through.”

Dressman said funds were not yet tallied from Saturday’s walk, and more funds could come in within the next 30 days to support the more than 300 MS patients in Bowling Green and the surrounding counties.

In bringing the MS Walk to Bowling Green for the first time in several years, the mission of the Louisville-based chapter is to increase awareness, Dressman said.

The incurable disease does not discriminate amongst its prey – it is a chronic and disabling disease of the central nervous system that targets people from all walks of life. Its progression, severity and specific symptoms cannot be foreseen.

In Martin’s case – as in most cases – the disease appeared very quickly. It began with a numbing sensation in her lips that progressively spread throughout her body over the next several days.

Medical experts told Martin she had everything from shingles to Bell’s palsy before an MRI scan finally diagnosed her condition as MS.

“I think people need to be more aware of it,” said Portland, Tenn., resident Alvin Alford, a friend of Martin’s who walked to support her. “I don’t know much about it myself. It’s a bad disease, though.”

Indeed, the disease has completely altered Martin’s life. One of her favorite hobbies – suntanning – is no longer an option. Whereas she used to enjoy RC Cola several times a day, she now drinks very limited quantities of caffeine-free Diet Coke. She no longer works full-time in a doctor’s office.

But perhaps the greatest toll is on Martin’s daughter, 10-year-old Emily Sullivan.

“Everything I do, she does for me,” Martin said. “I feel sorry for her sometimes. I feel like she doesn’t have a life. That’s no life for a 10-year-old. She’s had to grow up really quick because of me having this.”

But as Martin lives with roughly 25 percent of her original ability to sense touch, a fact that she calls her “daily, constant reminder” of the disease, she never takes for granted the help and support of her family and friends and people like those who joined the MS Walk on Saturday.

“It’s hard to express the feelings – that people would come out and support you, whether they have (MS) or not,” Martin said. “It breaks my heart. It’s overwhelming.”

– For more information on the new Bowling Green MS support/self-help group, call Tammy Martin at 991-7461. To donate money or to learn more about multiple sclerosis, visit http://www.kynmss.org on the Internet or call the local chapter of the National MS Society at 846-0014.