Meet the Steering Committee

CRYSTAL C.

Crystal C. is a psychology major at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. She lives in Nederland, Texas with her parents.

A year ago, just one week after Crystal was diagnosed with MS at age 23, she posted her first entry about MS on her MySpace blog. Since then, she has been a regular contributor to several blogs and six different MS online support groups.

"Through my MySpace page and online support communities, I'm able to talk to other people with MS that are my age and going through the same things as me," said Crystal. As a result, the word "community" has taken on a whole new meaning for her.

Crystal finds online communities most helpful when her symptoms are exacerbated. She primarily experiences fatigue in her legs. This causes her to fall and makes it very difficult for her to spend long periods of time on her feet. Yet, even when her mobility is limited, Crystal is still able to connect with the outside world through these communities.

Crystal is fortunate that she doesn't have any visual impairment or cognitive issues associated with her MS, so she hasn't had a need to explore technologies like voice recognition software or screen readers.

Still, simple technologies like blogs have made just as great an impact on her life as more advanced technologies have made in others.

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