So I Got a Tattoo

When I created my Bike MS team in 2009, I knew the team was going to need a mascot. Something that would signify the spunk and fight of the Saint Kate’s Fighting Saints team. My husband, Dan, replaced the helmet on the St. Paul Fighting Saints hockey player with the red pigtails from the Wendy’s girl and plopped the kid on a tricycle. Saint Kate’s Cycling Saint was born and she’s been with the team ever since.

Last year I did something I had talked about doing since college: I got a tattoo. That’s right a tattoo. The “right” design never came to me. There was never anything I felt about strongly enough to have with me for the rest of my life. There was never anything that meant so much to me that I wanted it etched permanently on my body. Not until Dan designed the Cycling Saint. As I said, she embodies the spunk that helps me fight my Multiple Sclerosis.

For the past 12 years, I’ve been fighting against my MS. I started experiencing blurred vision, and tingling in my hands and legs in the summer of 2004. My immune system had turned on me and started attacking my nervous system. After several tests, including a spinal tap, I was diagnosed with MS in 2005. The damage that’s been done to my spinal column will never be repaired, but I’m doing everything I can to prevent any more damage from being done.

This year I will be riding in the Twin Cities Bike MS ride on May 13. It is a 40-mile bike ride to raise money and awareness of MS. My goal is to raise $4000 for the MS Society. As an incentive and a thank you for those who support my team, Saint Kate’s Cycling Saints, I am staging a one-woman bake sale. It works like this:

$40 donation = 1 dozen Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies
$80 donation = 2 dozen Homemade Chocolate Chip Cookies
$100 donation = You call the cookie and I’ll bake a batch for you

Donations can be made online at bit.ly/StKate2017. Your donations go to the Upper Midwest MS Society to help fund research and help those with the disease.

I told my mom that I would get my Cycling Saint tattoo removed* when my MS was cured. So please: make my mom happy and help cure MS so I can get my tattoo removed*.