by Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

NNSL (Dec 24/97) - Rosalie Smith is a source of inspiration. Stricken by four chronic illnesses, she refuses to lose her positive outlook on life.

She even manages to look at her ill health as a learning experience. "I was always caring for everybody else. I've had to learn over the last four months that if I don't look after myself, no one's going to. It's been so positive."

The most pressing of Smith's illnesses is multiple sclerosis. She was first diagnosed with the degenerative nerve disorder in 1986 but says the disease is responsible for a recent bout of illness that landed her in the hospital.

Smith wants people to be more compassionate and less discriminating toward anyone living with a disability.

"What I want to get out to people is this last four months I've been through hell with doctors, cab drivers and restaurants. They look at me and I don't look ill, I look perfectly fine. There's so much discrimination out there, in the workforce, with people."

Smith maintains that good humor is vitally important in coping with chronic illness.

"I'm in serious pain but I still laugh because that's how I deal with it, through humor," says the mother of one. "That's what I love is humor, the last thing in the world I want is sympathy."

The former GNWT employee uses her condition to speak out on proactive and natural health care and improved treatment for shut-ins and she does advocacy work for disabled persons.

Smith says Christmas can be a particularly hard time for people who are seriously ill. "There are so many people out there who are shut-ins -- people with mental illness, nobody cares about them.

"We're lonely, we love to talk, we love company and we don't want to talk about our illnesses. Sometimes we need to but not always," says Smith, who has cut her daily pill intake from 60 to 20.

Until September of this year, Smith's volunteer efforts were spread around the Yellowknife community. Her advocacy work now takes place mostly over the phone, but it improves her well-being nevertheless.

"It makes me feel so good. People telling me I've been such an inspiration to them. That's what I'm there for, to help people. I don't want them to go through what I've been through."