As the Walk to Fight Arthritis approaches, Halifax’s 2015 Walk Hero is sharing her personal journey 21 years after being diagnosed with the disease.

Lisa Muise says she knew something was wrong when, at the age of 21, she woke up one morning and couldn’t walk.

“I thought I had pulled a muscle in my foot and I got my brother, he had to basically carry me to the car and take me to emergency,” Muise recalls.

She was told it was ‘just arthritis’ and sent home with painkillers, but the pain persisted and her condition worsened.

About two months later, Muise was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis. She was on several medications and simple everyday tasks became nearly impossible.

“When I went to see my rheumatologist for the first time, at 21, she had indicated that I would be in a wheelchair by the time I was 30,” says Muise.

“In the mornings I’d pretty much have to get up three hours before I had to be to work. I couldn’t dress myself because I couldn’t do up the buttons on my shirt or my pants. I had to get my mother to do that. I couldn’t turn on the faucets in the shower because I just did not have that motion with my hands.”

Muise says that was her daily routine for about eight years. During that span she had two joints replaced in her hands and snapped both Achilles tendons from inflammation.

In 2000, she became one of the first people in Nova Scotia to try the drug Enbrel.

“Within probably three to four weeks, I was pain free and did not know what that would be like.”

Now in remission for 15 years, the 42-year-old is back to living an active life. She has completed several marathons with the Joints in Motion program and travelled with the team as a trainer.

Now, Muise has been named this year’s Walk Hero for the Halifax Walk to Fight Arthritis. The event raises funds and works to break down common misconceptions about the disease.

“People don’t think there’s any pain associated because you look fine on the outside, but they don’t realize what you have to go through on the run of a day to carry out a regular daily activity,” says Muise.

“It’s an invisible disease in the sense that there’s no one way you look when you have arthritis,” says Adam Richardson of the Arthritis Society of Nova Scotia. “You can be young, you can be older, you can have serious mobility issues, you could look fine, but everybody faces different challenges.”

Richardson says stories like Muise’s are important to breaking the stigma surrounding the disease.

“To hear the struggles she’s had, it really does put that into perspective that it’s not somebody limping necessarily,” he says. “You’re not going to see somebody in a wheelchair, although Lisa is somebody who could have potentially ended up that way, but still everyday she deals with struggles.”

Muise says those struggles have changed her outlook on life.

“I never know from the next day if I’m going to get up and not be able to walk again.”

There are walks taking place across the Maritimes and across the country this Sunday in support of arthritis research, advocacy, programs and services.