(By Elida Sergi) Overcoming the limits imposed by a chronic, unpredictable and disabling disease like multiple sclerosis is not easy but it can be done, together with the people closest to you. This is demonstrated by the story of Eric and Silvia, mother and son, who will run together in the Milan Marathon on Sunday. Silvia Roldàn Balsalobre, Spanish from Barcelona, 60 years old, has been living with a progressive form of multiple sclerosis for 24 years. She is in a wheelchair but this has not stopped her from participating together with her son Eric Domingo Roldàn, 31 years old, in more than 30 races around the world (Spain, Portugal, France and Abu Dhabi) including 6 marathons. Mother and son started running together nine years ago. On Sunday it will be Milan’s turn, for the first time in Italy to cross the city at full speed as official ambassadors of Aism – Italian Multiple Sclerosis Association at the Milan Marathon.
“We chose to bring the story of Eric and Silvia to the Milan Marathon – underlines Vittorio Borgia, president of Aism Milano – because regardless of the illness situation, each person can choose how to face small and large difficulties, and their story represents a incredible example of resilience and love for life, beyond multiple sclerosis.
We met Eric and Silvia in 2020. As soon as we came out of lockdown we had organized a virtual race and we created a live connection to tell their beautiful story that knows no geographical boundaries or linguistic barriers – continues Borgia -. In their message of inclusion and participation we recognize the same spirit that pushed, more than 50 years ago, some people with multiple sclerosis and their families to create our Association: to raise awareness of the disease, to ask for full inclusion beyond disability, to represent the rights of people with multiple sclerosis and subsequently finance scientific research to discover the causes of the pathology, but above all to find a definitive cure”. “The diagnosis of multiple sclerosis – says Silvia – is not easy to deal with, it is a joke arrest, it changes your life. I had two options: throw in the towel and stay alone or at least try to enjoy life with the people around me. I always accompanied my son on his runs, then one day he came to me and said: Mum, what do you think, let’s go running together? – I replied: you’ve gone crazy! Then I thought about it a bit and said to myself: come on, I accept the challenge. And so it all began.” “Seeing the people next to me while we run, feeling the wind in my face, the shouts, the enthusiastic audience – she concludes – gives me an incredible emotion.”
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