Aaron Vehling

Last fall, Jana Jones would slip into her bathrobe and sandals and head down to the showers just like any other student living in the residence halls.

Unlike other hall residents, however, both of her sandals wouldn’t always make it there with her. Instead, she sometimes would end up losing her right sandal halfway down the hall without realizing it because of numbness in her right leg, she said.

Jones’ numbness was caused by a flare up of multiple sclerosis, which she was diagnosed with during the end of the summer of 2002.

MS is an autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system. The exact cause of the disease is unknown and there is no cure for it, according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society Web site.

Bad timing
Her diagnosis of MS came at a difficult time because school was just beginning and students were moving into the residence halls.

Jones was not able to help her fellow residents move into their rooms because she was completely exhausted from a spinal tap she had done to confirm the presence of the disease.

“I think they understood. A lot of them knew what was going on,” she said. “I had great people on my staff who stopped by and helped out the residents.”

She said she also had a hard time picking up objects like pens with her right hand and was so fatigued she often would sleep about 16 hours a day.

“We did as much as we could to help her by checking on her floor and trying to make her comfortable,” said senior Sharon Griffin, Jones’ roommate who worked with her as an RA in Towers North for two years.

Jones’ MS is in remission now and isn’t expected to flare up again for a year or two because she has one of the slowest progressing forms of the disease. This means she has long periods of remission, she said.

Helping others
Jones said the disease has made her selfish in that she has to listen to her body before going out with her friends or taking on extra commitments.

But it also has made her see that many other people suffer from the disease much more than she does, she said, which inspired her last year to help make the annual “Pie Your RA” fund-raiser a campuswide event to earn money for MS research.

“She was going to be walking in the MS walk in the Cities, so with the help of other halls and our staff we were able to pull together a great event to raise money for MS,” Griffin said. “This is just one way that Jana tries to give back to others.”

Jones said she plans on continuing to work toward funding MS research.

“I especialy admire the way Jana has stayed positive in the wake of adversity,” said Jodi Thesing-Ritter, assistant director of Housing and Resident Life. “Many people would have given up if they became ill, but Jana took it in stride.”

Learning a lot
Jones said that even with the physical symptoms of the disease during flare-ups, MS has not affected her plans for after her May graduation as much as it has being an RA for the previous two years.

“I’ve wanted to be a cop ever since I was really little,” said Jones, a criminal justice major. After living on campus, she wants to be a probation officer or a university police officer.

“I’m not ready to leave campus,” she said. “(I’m) ready to leave studying, but I like the atmosphere.”

Jones, who is living off campus for the first time this year, said being an RA was an important part of attending UW-Eau Claire. It made her see that she likes interacting with students by encouraging them to make safe choices. She also found she likes promoting a safe environment around her and enforcing the rules.

Griffin said being an RA doesn’t only help out criminal justice majors, but it can help students of any major prepare for the future by helping them learn how to work with different people and manage problems in a non-confrontational way.

Thesing-Ritter agrees that Jones learned all these things and more working in Towers.

“Jana was able to hone her organization skills, become more outgoing and learn flexibility,” Thesing-Ritter said. “She also made many friends and shared her joy of life with us.”

Jones said getting to know people was her favorite part about being an RA.

“Every day when I’m on campus I see 10 people I know,” she said. “And I know something (personal) about them, and lots of students don’t get that.

“I loved being an RA. I’m so glad I did it. I wouldn’t trade those two years for anything.”

The rule-enforcement skills she learned as an RA are already paying off in her job as a staff member at Eau Claire Academy, she said.

She has been working at the Academy since July with 10 adolescent girls who have personality disorders, learning disorders or post-traumatic stress disorder, Jones said.

“It’s really sad because I figure about half the girls won’t go back to the home they came from,” she said. “There’s some days you go home and you’re just drained because of what you have to deal with … but I love it. Somebody has to do it, and I don’t mind it.”

Planning Ahead
After she graduates in May, Jones plans on moving to the Twin Cities, where she hopes to work as a university police officer for the University of Minnesota. Her fianc‚, David Prall, graduated from Eau Claire in the spring and is working toward a medical doctorate at Minnesota.

Prall said he doesn’t think having Jones work as a university police officer while he’s attending school would be odd. He doesn’t think she’d have to bust anyone he knows, he said.

In fact, Prall said he would support her in anything she wants to do.

“She knows what she wants to do in life,” he said. “A lot of times you don’t see people with that sort of conviction in life.”

The pair also is getting prepared for their wedding in July and say they aren’t worried about the future progression of Jones’ MS, she said.

“She doesn’t have a real bad case,” Prall said. “It’s not something I worry about every day.”

Jones said she is determined to continue volunteering her time to the MS Society after she graduates by sending out mailings and helping to organize future walks, she said.

“(MS) is just another thing that life throws at you, and I think I’m doing fine with it,” Jones said. “Now (it’s) something I joke about. I don’t let it bring me down, I don’t let it stop me.”