Reaching Beyond: One Woman's Inspiring and Uncompromising Will to Live Through Love and Loss With Multiple Sclerosis

By the time Multiple Sclerosis entered the picture, Virginia Neary Carrithers had already learned how to fight for life and love. From bouts of croup that nearly killed her as a child, to her mother’s mental illness and cancer, to her beloved brother’s accident that left him a quadriplegic, and her father’s suicide, Ginny stood strong, developing a deep inner strength. She would need it for the challenges to come. A free-spirit and talented artist, her life morphed from small town Iowa to the seductive life of the jet-set, where mafia connections, luxury, physical passion, and fame became her norm. When MS sideswiped her health, Ginny, not to be deterred, rose to become a spokesperson for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, helping raise millions for “The Race Against MS.” The coming years brought marriage to an international playboy, motherhood, and a life-altering move from the U.S. to a 100,000-acre estancia in the Andes of northern Patagonia, Argentina. Pushing past tragedy and disease, Ginny’s life took a path of extremes few can imagine. Through her memories and words, explore and discover how her sense of humor, strength of heart, and creative spirit induced an unexplainable joy in the face of overwhelming odds.