- Scotiabank North Shore MS Walk takes place Saturday, April 9 at Ambleside Park in West Vancouver. The fundraising event -- from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. -- involves a walk along the Seawalk, live music and MS information sessions. Info: www.mssociety.ca/bc.

Ray Miller didn't let multiple sclerosis control his life. Instead, he fought back.

Diagnosed with the physically debilitating disease in 2003, the 32-year-old North Vancouver man has since completed five marathons, including the Ironman Canada competition -- and he's not about to stop. Miller is an avid runner, swimmer and biker who trains rigorously to keep the symptoms of his disease at bay, regularly sharing his progress on a personal blog, moresquirrel.blogspot.com.

"Most of the time, if you would ask me how I'm doing, I'm doing just fine," he said.

But for other MS patients, the disease can be physically, socially and emotionally draining. Symptoms vary for each person, but can include blurred vision, deteriorating balance and mobility, poor memory and failed hearing. According to the MS Society, the progressive disease that attacks the brain and spinal cord is "often debilitating, always unpredictable, and still incurable."

For Miller, the trouble started in May 2003 when he began to feel sharp muscle pains in the left side of his body. "It felt like a sneeze starting in my left bicep and just migrated all the way through the entire left side of my body . . . very, very painful," he said.

Spending months in and out of hospital trying to figure out what was happening, the then-25 year old remembers the frustration and pain as if it were yesterday. And when he was diagnosed with MS in November 2003, "it was the most ego-crushing experience of life," he said.

Three years after the "devastating" diagnosis, Miller began exercising regularly, hoping that physical activity would help to control the disease. And it worked. Since 2006, the North Vancouverite has seen his symptoms improved to the point that, most of the time, he doesn't have any presentable symptoms, he said.

"It's not like I'm curing it by running marathons but by being in better shape, my body is under less stress," he said. "I just feel better overall all the time so I notice less symptoms all the time."

This year, Miller teamed up with Scotiabank North Shore MS Walk organizers, working on their committee to plan the April 9 fundraising walk at West Vancouver's Ambleside Park. Participating in the event himself, Miller hopes to raise awareness of the disease and promote active living throughout the community, including those living with MS on the North Shore.

"Activity is a good thing for those of us with MS," he said. "The walk helps to get a lot of MS patients out of their homes and it really promotes the benefits of active lifestyles."

Canada currently has one of the highest rates of MS in the world. The MS Society estimates that between 50,000 and 75,000 Canadians are affected -- in B.C., more than 8,000 people live with the degenerative disease.

And the costs of treating MS patients are high. A 1998 report, published in the Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences, estimated that the lifetime cost of the disease is $1.6 million for each person diagnosed with MS.

Last year, the North Shore MS Walk raised just over $110,000 for the MS Society, put toward various research and support programs.

And Miller hopes that the North Shore event will raise even more funds this year to support the MS community, he said.

"We're really, really hoping that we get more donations this year."