Justine Martin
"You will always meet someone worse off than yourself"
When Justine Martin was just nine years old, her mother was diagnosed with MS. Justine spent much of her young life caring for her mother, who was eventually admitted to the MS facility at Lidcombe in Sydney when Justine was 22.
After her mother's passing in 1997, Justine became a mother herself and enjoyed a successful career managing teams at Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig and Tupperware. But a decade of experiencing her own episodes of vision disturbances, fatigue, nerve pain and cognitive difficulties eventually led Justine to a multiple sclerosis diagnosis in 2011 - just like her mother.
Justine could subsequently no longer work because of her symptoms but determined not to succumb to her illness, she and her partner at the time decided to move from Perth to Geelong to be close to Justine's family for support.
And, at the suggestion of her neurologist, she also took up a new hobby - painting.
Justine is now an emerging artist and has won a number of prizes for her paintings over the past few years. She has also received an MS Go for Gold Scholarship.
Donating much of her art to various MS fundraisers, Justine also finds time to visit schools to support the MS Readathon. She is interested in physical fitness and is a a competitive weightlifter. In 2014 Justine won the Victorian Master State championship for her age/weight. Training four days a week, she believes that lifting weights has improved her balance and walking as well as her mindset.
An MS Ambassador for some time, Justine continues to live a full and rewarding life -
"I will continue to live a full and rewarding life no matter what is thrown at me. I want to show people that life does continue even with disabilities."
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If you would like to book an MS Ambassador, please free-call MS Connect on 1800-042-138 or email: ambassadors-vic@ms.org.au (for VIC Ambassadors), ambassadors-nsw@ms.org.au (for NSW).
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