...Simone was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.

Some of my faves, New Years Eve at Darlo.
Was it 2005 or 2006?

It was exactly a year ago that I received a Facebook group invitation from my friend Joe, asking me to sponsor him in the MS Fun Run that was happening that weekend in Sydney. He went on to say that one of his closest friends - 'as good as family' - had just been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis at the tender age of 24. Joe is actually my oldest friend who doesn't happen to be related - there's a photo of us rolling around in a green barrel at Invergowrie play school, when we were about three years old. I'd gone through play school, pre-school, primary school and high school with Joe - then who was this closest friend who had been diagnosed with MS??? Had he found a new group of friends that he'd actually known for 20 years and considered like family??? Was he just trying to pilfer a bit of extra cash for that extravagant lifestyle he no doubt leads in Sydney??? Or was I, after 18 months overseas and 10,000 kilometres away in Whistler, just a bit out of the loop???

I was determined to find out who this person was, and went on a massive Facebook stalk. Besides some of my friends repopulating Australia single handedly, others planning weddings or precious two-week trips overseas, there was not much jumping out at me - as far as Facebook statuses can jump out. I went to Simone's page, knowing that I'd read something about a twitch in the last couple of weeks. Maybe a mention of imbalance, or exhaustion. I spoke to her on Facebook chat, starting with an emphatic 'what's going on???' Not as in 'hey, what's going on', but a furtive, panicked 'what's-going-on-who-is-this-person-that-Joe-loves-who-has-just-been-diagnosed-with-MS-and-do-I-really-need-to-donate-or-is-it-just-one-of-his-random-Sydney-friends-with-their-big-hair-and-their-fancy-high-heeled-shoes-and-their-Gucci-bags-who-think-Armidale-is-a-formidable-place-in-the-desert-where-we-ride-kangaroos-to-school-and-just-got-colour-TV-or-is-it-actually-someone-I-like???'

It was the latter. Big fan of Simone.

What came next was a hurried Internet search for any easy, layman's explanation of what MS actually is. I can guarantee there's at least six people who will read this whose first thought about MS was Mrs Hughes the Librarian, from St Mary's Primary School in Armidale. She had MS. She would zip around the library in an electric scooter called Phar Lap. Mrs Hughes ran that library single handedly, squeezing her big machine behind the counter (where she would sometimes let us scan the books ourselves!), re-shelving all the picture books and young adult novels (I just had a horrid thought - I really hope they don't have Twilight in there now) and commandeering the remote control in the video pit like a boss. Every year us kids would all take part in the MS Readathon, gaining sponsors from the family ranks and trying to beat each other in the amount of books you could read - at least that's what me, Ashlea and Kate Fitz did.

This medicinal marijuana in Amsterdam in 2005
only gave us the giggles

So when you find out that there's no cure for MS, that it affects three times as many women as men, that the average age of diagnosis is 30, and that the symptoms can vary from a loss of sense of balance, twitching, loss of sensitivity and tingling, problems in speech and fatigue - you realise that the possibility of getting a bit of medicinal marijuana is just not worth it. And to have that realisation at age 24 - it's not fair.

You know what else is super not fair? Losing your father when you are 17, and then being diagnosed with MS seven years later. Simone's dad, Ben, died suddenly of a heart attack in 2004, while away on a hunting trip in Goondiwindi. He fortuitously left three coins in his pocket - one for his wife and one each for his two sons and daughter - and Simone wears that five cent piece on a chain around her neck all the time.

The days, weeks and months that followed that unhappy time were an amazing banding together or friends, family and community to provide Simone and her family with the love and care they deserved. Our group of friends, the night Ben died, were celebrating Joe's 18th birthday at his family home - which involved a massive bonfire and the squeals of rabbits being smoked out of their barrows. Once Simone's aunty and uncle had taken her away into town to be with her mum, we huddled together to comfort each other and as news spread our parents came to collect us - with I'm sure a new found respect for the fragility of life.

We were born in the 80's.

Our group of friends - I'm just remembering this now - gave ourselves a day off school and hung around the park together, waiting to see if Simone was up for visitors. We eventually made it out to her place to join the throngs of well-wishers and help out in any way. I'll tell you this much for free - cooked chooks are worth their weight in gold, and so versatile! The Hiscox's friendship group is quite a spectacle - from old school friends of Ben's and Kay's, colleagues, so many relatives that you need to get some butchers paper to draw up a family tree, church friends, Jason and Mitch's rugby team mates, and school friends of, just quietly, three pretty cool siblings.

This same friendship group was shocked to learn about Simone's diagnosis, and we once again banded together to try and help out. Joe, as 'the absolute opposite to the picture of health' (see aforementioned extravagant Sydney lifestyle), committed to running the 2011 MS Fun Run which was eerily coincidentally the week after Simone's diagnosis. Picko, an old family friend, quickly organised a similar fund raiser in Armidale. Everyone Googled MS to find out what it is, what it does, and (at least I did this) how can we be positive and take Simone's mind off this?

Sorry Simone, but this wasn't
even the bad photo.
Note, we were at the beach,
so the no pants aspect of the photo
is a bit more acceptable

A month after all this, and with a sigh of relief that she was actually coming, I went to Vancouver airport to collect Simone and Gabi. No one knew if Simone was going to be able to fly - would she have to take stupid amounts of medication, what if she had an extreme relapse in the middle of the Canadian Rockies while fighting a bear, what is she has a slight unbalance while taking a jumping photo on a wharf and falls into the ice cold water (...almost happened), and ultimately - would she be up for it? Such a huge flight, away from home for over a month, away from your doctors and your mum and your whole support system. Luckily Gabi and I are pretty awesome, and we were enough to get her on that plane. At least that's what I think.

Simone's side-on approach to a jumping
photo is a bit more flattering

We had an awesome two weeks together. I hadn't seen Gabi or Simone for almost a year and a half, and we had alot of catching up to do - mainly gossip and speculation about who would get pregnant next (still winning!). We had a quick dash through the Rockies and I eventually learned that MS can cause exhaustion and fatigue, and to give Simone a break if she didn't want to do one more little hike, or go a little bit further.

Phill and I have loved getting visitors here in Whistler, mainly so we can be tour guides and show people how awesome our lives are and tell them stories about bears and beavers and poutine and caesars, and so Phill can explain the rules of hockey (or ice hockey as it's known in Australia) and I can show off my commute to work, or the tiny hut at the top of the hill that you can see from our balcony - that's where I make waffles! So to have this time with two of my best friends after so long apart was unbelievably cool. We used to see each other six days a week for six years, but now things were getting real and we had been living separate lives for seven years.

It's a special kind of friendship that lasts for twenty years, especially when you're only 25. That's alot of stuff to go through together - alot of ridiculous teenage angst issues, pimples and boobs and periods, first kisses, leaving school, going to uni, moving away, travelling, falling in love and getting engaged. Simone's one of those people who, it doesn't matter how long you haven't seen them for, is just going to be the same cool chick with the same loud laugh and big boobs hair and that way of tucking in her elbows when she laughs and awesome family and awesome friends who would cross an ocean - at least run eight kilometres - for her.

I know they're kidding.

This weekend is the MS Walk and Fun Run, to raise money for both research into MS, and for providing care, respite and support for those suffering from MS. Team Simo, comprising of Joe, Ciara, Kate Fitz and Sonya, has raised over $3,000 and just reading down the donations list makes me a bit homesick. So if you've got some spare cash, donate some money. If not, give Simone a hug next time you see her, or help an old lady cross the road, or put on a jumper instead of turning up the heating, or write a letter instead of an email, or swap a shift with someone who's desperate, or try some food that you've never had, or help out a lost tourist, or warn somebody about the dangers of drop bears, or go for a run, or pick someone flowers, or call you mum, or do a dance - something that's going to make this a happier and healthier place.