1999 Mother and Father of the Year.

Primary-progressive MS has not stopped Jill Manning-Fitzgerald from seeing her kids, Stephen, age 13, and Natalie, age 7, off to school every morning. She has never missed one of their school programs, teacher's conferences, or softball games. The family has weathered many changes in the past 3 years since Ms. Manning-Fitzgerald's diagnosis. She divorced her husband, and then had to give up her managerial job due to her disabilities. Tremors in her arms and hands made many everyday tasks, like feeding herself, impossible, and she can no longer walk. While she has caregivers come in to help with cooking and cleaning, her kids know they are responsible for many chores around the house.

Being a single-parent mom with severe MS has been a daunting challenge--but Jill Manning-Fitzgerald thinks it's made her a stronger person, and a good role model for her children. Both kids are excellent students, but they also spend time with their friends--just being kids. Their mom sees to that.

Tom Casey Crain was diagnosed with primary-progressive MS in 1989, a year before his son Thomas Jack (TJ) was born; he also has 2 grown children, Casey and Shannon. Mr. Crain retired from teaching high school when his left side became paralyzed, and now uses a cane or scooter for longer distances.

TJ gets "driven" to school each day on his dad's scooter. When TJ started kindergarten, his father introduced the kids to his scooter by taking them all for rides around the classroom. Tom Crain has found a world of activities he can share with TJ and other kids in the neighborhood, from playing chess to doing research on the Internet. He is pretty good with adults, too--promoting an adaptive yoga class for people with disabilities and teaching the use of adaptive computer technology.

For TJ, his dad's disability has always been the "norm". If anything, TJ is more sensitive to people who are different than he is, and more patient.