East Wenatchee resident's podcasts on MS go global

EAST WENATCHEE Deanna Kirkpatrick spends 80 percent of her days in bed or in a recliner. She walks short distances with a cane.

Multiple sclerosis has mostly condensed her world to a small apartment in East Wenatchee, Douglas County. Once an avid skier, runner, softball player, Seattle radio host and pharmaceutical sales representative, she's lost her job and her lifestyle to the disease.

What she hasn't lost is her ability to communicate.

The 45-year-old's voice has gone global.

The podcasts on multiple sclerosis that she produces with two others with MS have been listened to 17,000 times in the past year, she said. They draw listeners from as far as Australia, Japan, Germany, Italy and India.

The shows have been picked by Blog Talk Radio, which calls itself one of the largest platforms for Internet radio, as a featured production.

"I love it," Kirkpatrick says. "The show has just given me a passion for helping other people. I've lost my health and my career, and a lot of loss happens when you're diagnosed with a chronic disease. But there are blessings that come out of this. I'm here to say, there are opportunities to help yourself and other people."

She and her two MS friends create podcasts under the name Multiple Sclerosis Unplugged. They interview researchers, physicians, MS patients and others knowledgeable about the disease for the one-hour show.

Her mediums are her laptop and her phone.

"I usually have a cup of coffee next to me, my reading glasses on and the phone up to my ear," she said. "I have a cat in my lap and a dog on the side of me and I'm doing this show from the comfort of my living room."

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East Wenatchee resident's podcasts on MS go global