Clay Walker talking.

Country singer Clay Walker is known for singing, not talking.

His albums, including A Few Questions (2003, RCA) and his eleven number-one hit singles have been rocking country music charts for more than a decade. Curb Records will release a long-awaited new album later this year. But people with MS have been hearing a different side of Clay. He's been showing up at MS 150 Bike events and at educational seminars for people with MS. Not because he adopted our cause out of the blue. Clay has been living with MS since 1996.

We caught up with him just before he gave a stirring concert, sponsored by Teva Neuroscience, Inc., at the Society's National Conference last fall. We asked him about his life and what he'd like to say to other people with MS.

My whole family is musical, my sisters have great voices, my father, my uncle. My grandfather was a musician ... and all my cousins sang. It was a regular thing for us to sit around the living room singing and playing so it was just natural that I went into music. It was what I was supposed to do.

I was with my band in Calgary, Alberta, and we were playing basketball one afternoon. All of a sudden my leg was asleep. I kept shaking it. And then I was falling down on the court. When I looked up I saw two hoops. By the time I got off the court, I'd completely lost my balance.

We were doing a show that night. It was probably the scariest moment of my life getting on that stage. I couldn't hold a guitar pick no matter how hard I tried, my fingers were that numb. I had to play with my fingers, which I don't do. I knew something was really wrong. And then the fun began. I started having a facial spasm that ran from the top of my head down to my chin. It went on so hard and for so long I actually got a blister on my eyelid from it. I had brutal symptoms.

Multiple sclerosis. I'd never heard of it. I had it mixed up with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) or maybe MD (muscular dystrophy). My doctor told me to go home, get plenty of rest. That was it. Well, I couldn't believe it happened. I was married and our first child was just three months old. How was I going to take care of her, of my family, of myself? Was this thing going to take my career? Even my life? I was so broken spiritually, so broken physically and mentally, I didn't know if I could pick myself back up.

I think that most people who get diagnosed go into a little bit of denial. It's really a self-protecting thing. I think it's good to have that denial, but then you have to start living again. You have to come out of that shell. It took me some years to do that.

We've come so far since 1996! We have these good therapies now. Without the drug I'm taking, I really don't know where my life would be.

On my very first CD there was a song called "Dreaming with My Eyes Open"--an up-tempo, fast-beat song. I almost considered not recording it. It didn't strike me as a song I could sing great, but my producer talked me into it. It became one of the most played songs of that year, and today, every time I sing it, it gets more and more special to me. It says I'm going to do my dreaming with my eyes wide open. That's what we all have to do with MS. Dreaming with eyes open is a vision. When you close 'em, it's just a dream.

I have this vision that one of these days there's not going to be any such thing as MS. For the rest of my life I want to do everything I can to help find the cure for MS and, at the same time, encourage people to really try to manage the disease.

About half of the people who could be taking one of these drugs, just aren't doing it. They aren't managing their MS. I think they're in the denial stage. I know they need to dream with eyes open.

I know there are goofy people out there who think the government or medicine is trying to give us the shaft; that there might really be a cure but they're not releasing it. I promise you if there were a cure, it would be out here.

For right now, these therapies really do help. I've had five years of remission. No relapses. Who knows what's going to work for each individual? I know that. But I hope I can give people encouragement. You really can recover some of the physical things that you've lost to MS if you dedicate yourself to a little bit of exercise every day.

In the summer, I've been riding in the MS 150 Bike Tours around the country, and it's one of the coolest things I've ever done. I'll be honest with you: I'm not the athlete I used to be. MS has taken a little away from me. Still, I think I'm probably in the best shape of my life right now. That's because I've decided, well, what's the best that I can be? I'll never be an NFL football player. But what's the best I can be?

Just compare yourself to yourself, is what I learned. Don't look at a family member or your best friend. Look at where you are right now when you start. Then look at where you are three months from now, six months from now, a year.

I hope that one day we have some better therapies. That we'll have some doctors who can repair nerves. I have all kinds of dreams. But for right now I know I can take care of myself and benefit from it. So I want to tell people don't wait around. Start right now, today. This disease isn't something you can play catch-up with later on.

Make no mistake, this disease is not one dimensional. You have to take care of your mind, body, and spirit.

Whatever a person's belief system-and I hope each person has one--you have to rely on that. I've had to pull very deep on my faith. I don't think any one thing is more important for me than another: my faith, my medicine, my family, the fountains of support that I got. I think that all of those things are absolutely intertwined.

I always tell people the first thing I did was to get rid of all my high maintenance friends. You realize there's no reason to be miserable. We can choose the attitude that we have--it's about the only thing we really can choose.

I truly feel it's important, especially if a person doesn't have good support, to get involved with the National MS Society, get involved in these MS events, because they're so helpful. You're going to meet people. You're going to find someone else who's struggling and knows what you feel. There really is camaraderie here. One of the reasons I love the National MS Society is that they focus on the people, not the disease. The events and the meetings seem intimate no matter how big the crowd is. I'm so impressed by that. I know a lot of people with MS fear for other people finding out. I'd like the public to know that MS is not a death sentence. The more awareness of that we get out there, the better.

I truly think people who have MS have more to offer society than your average person. Your whole life changes. For me, it really took the blinders off. I can spot a phony a mile away. I say this all the time: You can't BS someone with MS.

So I'd like people out there to know that if you're lucky enough or blessed enough to meet someone with MS, you're going to have a great conversation. I truly believe MS makes people more worthy. I know I've met wonderful, heartfelt, deep people. Artistic. Deep philosophers. It's amazing. Sometimes I think there are no dummies with MS except for me.

Once I feared I wouldn't walk my daughter down the aisle. Now I have two daughters and I don't fear that anymore.

I do fear for people who have progressive MS and I hope in the next little while the doctors will find a therapy that works for them. I can't help but believe that, with all the great scientists and the great research that's going on, that will happen.

Looking back to when I was diagnosed, I know I've come a long way. The fear of MS is just terrible. When you lay down in bed at night, well, I know those nightmares. That's why I want to be a role model. We have to have a good outlook and not let MS define who we are. It's not the MS but how we stand up in the face of it that defines us.