http://www.sacbee.com/news/news/local05_20010808.html
(Published Aug. 8, 2001)
Julianne Vertnik's multiple sclerosis
makes it nearly impossible to get out of bed some days. She tires easily
and has trouble lifting her legs. Walking a city block, she says, can be
a daunting task.
"I wouldn't have thought I'd be leaping
off a rock, not in a million years," Vertnik says moments after taking
the plunge -- kerplunk! -- into the 60-degree water.
"If someone had told me I could do
something like this," she says while floating peacefully on her back, "I
would have told them they're crazy."
Going crazy, or at least letting
your hair down and having a blast, is precisely the point of the Saturday
rafting outing with Disabled Sports USA.
The organization offers adventures,
from snow skiing to water skiing, geared for people normally stuck on the
sidelines watching others have fun.
Derrick Wydick, the man at the helm
of Vertnik's raft, says those on the white water trip often arrive bowed
not only by their disabilities, but by the expectations others have for
them.
But after vanquishing Class 3 rapids
with names like Satan's Cesspool, Recovery Room and Surprise (as in: Don't
be surprised if you get launched from the raft) the rafters leave soaking
wet, pumping their fists and feeling as if they've conquered the world.
"This is freedom for them," Wydick
says.
On Saturday, two blue rafts emblazoned
with DSUSA joined a parade of others setting out from the tiny town of
Lotus on the south fork of the American River.
Vertnik and her mother, Joan, are
with Wydick in his raft. The Blomquist family, including 12-year-old Ben,
who is autistic, are in another raft.
Before the trip, Ben says that if
he were an animal, he'd be a tiger.
On the river, he's more like an otter,
sliding off the side of the raft in calm areas and swimming beside his
mom or dad until a rumble of rapids signals that it's time to flop back
in the boat.
On her raft, Julianne Vertnik is
worried about keeping her pills dry and her body temperature cool.
Vertnik says multiple sclerosis crept
up on her in 1990 while she was on an island-hopping cruise through the
Caribbean.
For some reason, she could hardly
move her feet while walking along a beach. At first, she thought her legs
were merely shaky from spending time on the cruise ship.
Instead, her immune system was attacking
the substance that covers her nerve fibers. Signals from her brain weren't
getting through to her legs and simple maneuvers like walking or climbing
stairs were becoming monumental tasks.
Her difficulties, she says, are exacerbated
by the heat.
Vertnik compares her nerve fibers
to a wooden door. When it's cool, she says, the door works perfectly. But
in the heat, the wood expands and it's difficult to open and close.
In the same way, she says, her nerves
don't seem to line up when it's hot, and her symptoms -- trouble moving
her legs, the fatigue, the lack of balance -- grow worse.
On Saturday, with temperatures pushing
90 degrees, she worries aloud about handling rapids if she's sapped by
the heat.
"I know what will fix that," Wydick
says, a wicked smile on his face and his hand on his oar. A few seconds
later, everyone in the bow of the raft is wet from Wydick's splashing,
Vertnik has cooled off and the white water trip has officially begun.
Like Ben Blomquist, Vertnik slips
out of the raft and into the American River. While Ben splashes around,
Vertnik chooses to relax, letting the current pull her downstream toward
Folsom Lake.
It's almost as if she's more at home
in the water: It cools her down and the multiple sclerosis has less of
an effect when she's submerged and weightless.
It's on land where she has her problems.
She walks slowly, has to lean against
walls and occasionally falls down.
"I've had people stare at me like
they think I'm drunk," she says.
So when Wydick pulls the raft up
to a craggy boulder in the middle of the river and asks who wants to jump
off, it's hard to believe that Vertnik will be up for the task.
"I don't think she can do it," says
her mother, Joan, who chooses to stay on board.
But lately Julianne Vertnik has been
feeling better. She takes a combination of medications that give her more
energy and counteract her disease.
In April, she felt vigorous enough
to take skiing lessons with Disabled Sports USA and in October she plans
to go on a 4-wheel drive adventure with the group.
She decides that the big gray rock
in the middle of the rushing river is just another obstacle she is going
to conquer.
With the help of Wydick and fellow
guide Paul Gugliuzza, she climbs -- slowly and with a few slips and stumbles
-- to the top.
On her perch, the two guides let
go of her arms and she hesitates for a moment. Then she takes her leap,
submerges for second and pops up with a smile on her face.
Freedom.
The Bee's Matthew Barrows can be
reached at (916) 321-1008 or mbarrows@sacbee.com.
Copyright © The Sacramento Bee
By Matthew Barrows
Bee Staff Writer
So why on Earth was the 40-year-old
perched atop a hulking, gray boulder in the middle of the American River
this weekend, a dozen people staring up at her and urging her to jump?