Hanna McVeigh walks for awareness

CEDAR RAPIDS - Hanna McVeigh thought she had the flu just before Valentine's Day in 2014.

'I was just vomiting. I couldn't eat. I couldn't drink. I was very dizzy,” she said.

Hanna, who was then 16, said she didn't tell her parents about the illness right away, because she didn't want them to take her out of her last basketball game of the season.

'Everyone in the stands could see she didn't look good,” her mother Robin said. 'We took her into the doctor (the next day) ... and then it was crazy after that.”

After multiple tests and doctors visits, Hanna was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in March 2014.

MS is a chronic disease where the immune system eats away at the central nervous system and disrupts the flow of information between the brain and body. Symptoms are different for everyone, which makes it challenging to solve, Hanna said.

'Balance and hand-eye coordination aren't a thing for me,” said Hanna, who is now 18 and a senior at Jefferson High School.

The medication she takes turns her skin bright red 'like a tomato” and she gets tired easily. She also has to watch her favorite sports - basketball and softball - from the sidelines, can't attend full days of school and has to take tests in a room away from her classmates.

'A month into it, she got mad, and thought, ‘No one should feel like this,' and she had to do something about it,” her mother said.

Hanna designed 'I Wear Orange For Hanna” T-shirts, and sold them throughout the summer and into the next school year to raise money for MS research. She had an initial goal of selling 100 shirts, but with the community's support, she ended up selling 400.

Her brother Dylan's Little League baseball team also wore Hanna's shirts throughout their season, and he organized a Wiffle ball tournament that raised over $500 for MS research.

Hanna has since given presentations on MS to her classmates, and enrolled herself in an anatomy course at school to properly understand what MS is doing to her body. She also is the assistant coach for a softball team of 8-to 10-year-olds called Team Hanna MS Awareness.

And this Saturday, she will be an ambassador for the Walk MS: Christopher & Banks Cedar Rapids Walk.

'I just want to spread the word about the walk and MS in general,” Hanna said. 'To share my story with other people, and how it is affecting me, and how it can affect other people. I think it is important to let people know that it isn't the same for every body.”

In the future, Hanna wants to major in business and minor in marketing. She hopes to open her own sports complex in Cedar Rapids that would provide physical therapy services.

'For her to be active and talking about it helps us understand that she is grasping what is happening,” her mother added. 'She has always been a doer.”

IF YOU GO

Check-in for the Walk MS: Christopher & Banks Cedar Rapids Walk begins at 8:30 a.m. Saturday at Mays Island. The walk begins at 10 a.m. To donate to the cause, or sign up for the walk visit www,nationalmssociety.org and click 'Get involved” then 'Register for a Walk MS event near you”.