30-year battle with MS won't stop determined woman
from dream of climbing Masada.
Gabriella Burman
Special to the Jewish News
F
or many visitors to Israel, a hike up Masada
is the highlight of a great vacation. For Dina
Kawer of Huntington Woods, it may well be the
greatest physical accomplishment of her life.
Kawer, 51, a mother of two, is a photographer who
has multiple sclerosis and walks with two canes. She
tires easily, has trouble balancing and is extremely sen-
sitive to heat.
Given those challenges, she ought to be the last per-
son heading up the narrow switchbacks of Masada's
famous snake path, where temperatures soar well north
of 100 degrees in the summer.
But on July 1, Kawer plans to overcome the obstacles
on the mountain as she has the many difficulties that
come with having a chronic illness.
"Let's get it on;' she said. "I'm not going to let it stop
me.
Kawer is, in fact, climbing Masada not only for personal
reasons, but also to raise funds for the National Multiple
Sclerosis Society through a Web site her son designed for
the occasion: www.howwilligetbackdown.com ."I figured
the climb was a great opportunity and it would be pretty
selfish not to do something more for the MS community,"
she said. To date, the site has raised $5,000.
A trip to Israel, she says, has been a lifetime in the
planning. Kawer's father, Ben, a Holocaust survivor,
instilled in her a deep sense that Israel "was home, that
it was our refuge and she always intended to go.
Life, however, had other plans for her, taking away her
focus from this lifelong dream. In her late teens, growing
up in Oak Park, she began to exhibit symptoms of MS,
including weakness in her left arm and leg and loss of
peripheral vision. She received a diagnosis of MS when
she was 20 and studying at Wayne State University in
Detroit.
"By the time I was diagnosed, I already suspected I
had it; so while I wasn't happy about it, I decided not
to let it stop me," she recalled. She obtained her college
degree and accepted her first job as a medical photog-
rapher at Children's Hospital of Michigan in Detroit.
Afflicting more than 400,000 Americans, MS is an
autoimmune disease that attacks and damages the
myelin sheath insulating nerve endings and thus com-
promises electrical impulses traveling from the brain
to various parts of the body. There are relapsing and
progressive forms of the disease, and although two
people may share similar symptoms, they may not be
affected identically. While there are therapies that stave
off symptoms, there is no cure for MS; however, except
in the most serious cases, life expectancy is normal.
A common feature of the illness is fatigue, and Kawer
was advised not to have children. "I was told that some
women with MS experience worsening symptoms,
such as overwhelming fatigue, after childbirth; but I
said once you have kids you're exhausted anyway, and
fatigue isn't life threatening, so I wasn't going to let
anyone stop me from having kids:' she said, using again
the common refrain that will be her battle cry as she
treks up Masada.
She married, had two children and later divorced.
Her son, Shay Goldenberg, 25, is an animator in San
Diego; daughter Shanna Goldenberg, 23, is a program
director for Teach for America in Las Vegas.
"When they were young, I wasn't using canes and
I fell a lot:' Kawer said. "So I'd call the kids over with
their games and books and we'd play where I was, on
the floor, until I could get up again." She initially resist-
ed assistive walking devices because she viewed them
"as a loss of independence but gradually accepted that
using one cane, and then two, gave her more energy
and greater mobility.
"I realized it was simply the circumstance of my life
she said. "It was never, 'poor me.'"
This go-getter attitude is shared by her daughter,
Shanna, whose own Masada experience, on a teen mis-
Moving Mountains on page A20
June 19
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