'Relatively unstoppable': How MS led a Langley woman to body building

Sasha Anzulovich’s ankles went numb. She was a teen, and worried that no one would believe her if she told them. But something had to be done. She couldn’t move her feet and soon began to have issues with her sight.

In 2012, Anzulovich was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a chronic and unpredictable disease that affects the body’s nervous system.

Today, a little more than a decade later, Anzulovich is a Langley realtor and body builder who can leg press 300 pounds. But her journey has not been smooth. After managing to keep the disease from progressing, a car accident last year triggered her MS and caused her to lose mobility. Although she can now walk again, she is dealing with the treatment that stops MS from progressing. 

But she is resilient. 

“I am relatively unstoppable, I can still get the job done,” she said. 

Now she is hoping that her experience with fitness and body building can help others with the disease, thanks to a fundraiser she is holding this summer.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and concision.

FVC: Can you tell me a little bit about the process of knowing that something was wrong, to actually being diagnosed with MS? What was that experience like for you?

Anzulovich: Getting a diagnosis of MS is a bit of a process … I actually had some pretty severe symptoms in 2012 when I was diagnosed … I got the call—December 22, 2012—from my GP that it looked like MS. Then there's a waiting period. You have to wait eight months to get another MRI to see if the lesions move around, and that's a big part of the diagnosis process. So those eight months were—I feel like I zoned out. You know what I mean? It was so overwhelming and anxiety provoking and scary just to have that waiting period, and I didn't know what MS was at the time. I just knew that it was bad. I frankly thought I was going to die.

FVC: What kind of symptoms were you experiencing at the beginning?

Anzulovich: The very first when I was 16 or 17? That would have been numb ankles. I couldn't move my foot because my ankles burned out. I thought everybody had that, and experiences that I had had in my childhood led me to believe that if I did report anything, I wouldn’t really be believed.

FVC: Once you got your diagnosis, what was that moment like for you? What were you feeling about yourself and your health? 

Anzulovich: In that moment, I was terrified. I still didn't know what MS was. All I knew was that, again, it was bad, and I had to do a lot of research on my own because, of course, medical jargon isn't super clear to someone who isn't a doctor or in the field—all I knew was my ankles were numb. 

The disease also began to impact Anzulovich’s vision.

I had optic neuritis [inflammation of the optical nerve], and so everything went double, and then slanted, and then started spinning. And then at one point—and this happened a couple of times—I went blind, and my whole body would seize up, and I would hit the ground. And I don't know how long I'd be out for, but I'd be out. 

I was alone at the time, I was living alone, so when I actually got the diagnosis, I was incredibly overwhelmed and still very, very scared, because, again, I did not know what it was. I don't think a lot of information about the disease was really out there at the time.

FVC: When did you start getting into body building and fitness? How did that interact with this diagnosis that you just received that seemed so overwhelming?

Anzulovich: Because I didn't know what MS was, I decided that I needed to do some research. And what I found in my research is that physical fitness, specifically body building, slows the degenerative process down. So I immediately went head-first into body building, and what I found was, first of all, it made me feel good. It made me feel good to know that I was doing something to try to combat the disease. It made me feel confident. It helped my strength. And I was pretty intense with it. At one point I was prepping for a body building competition. 

FVC: Did you ever go into that competition?

Anzulovich: When I got down to the single digits body fat percentage, my symptoms would flare up, and so I had to stop. 

FVC: So it's kind of a balance between managing your MS symptoms and then also finding ways that you can help your body with the body building as well.

Anzulovich: Yes. So one of the things that I am really grateful for is the fact that I can still use my legs and my arms. I'm completely able-bodied, and I think that is due, at least in part, to staying active.

You know what they say, if you don't use it, you lose it. 

FVC: Where do you see yourself going with your fitness?

Anzulovich: Well, I can't predict what's going to happen to my body. All I know is that I used to have a lot more energy. Comparing when I was first diagnosed to now, my energy has been greatly impacted. I'm in a lot more pain day to day. 

Anzulovich said she has faced a number of setbacks in her pushback against the disease. Shortly after her diagnosis in 2012, Anzulovich tried two different ways to halt the progression of MS, to no avail. Then she tried a form of chemotherapy which kills her white blood cells, effectively stopping the immune system from continuing to attack her nervous system. 

The chemotherapy worked, and Anzulovich’s multiple sclerosis went into remission after two treatments. But it wasn’t a complete solution. The chemo made it necessary to remove her thyroid, which happened while she was completing the first part of her real estate course. 

“Life doesn’t stop when you’re sick,” she said. But she also noted that the first two years of being a real estate agent were “the hardest of my life”—in part because of the car accident that sent her back to the hospital last year.

Anzulovich: Thankfully, I walked away, but within one week, I couldn't walk. I walked away that day, but within one week, I was out of remission. 

That was terrifying, because I had never had an experience where I physically couldn't walk. I couldn't use my arms, I couldn't use my fingers. Everything was too stiff, my legs were too weak and shaky to work. So that was quite terrifying, because that was a fear come true. 

A steroid drip administered in the hospital helped her walk again, and she was able to go home. But she still didn’t know her body’s white blood cells were once again attacking the protective coverings around her nerves. 

Anzulovich: I remember this moment very well, and it was a terrible moment. I was at home. It was around 10am in the morning, and this was after I had my scans done, and my neurologist's office called. I don't think she knew at the time that I didn't know, because she mentioned that I was out of remission as if I already knew.

Anzulovich went through another round of chemotherapy and is now nearly at the end of the recovery period for that treatment. 

Anzulovich: I did the third round of chemotherapy, and I'm hoping that nothing else happens. Otherwise, I still have hypothyroidism. I have gut dysfunction as well. I'm extremely tired. My legs are slow, right? I can't run, I can't jog, and I can't walk fast for longer than maybe 30 seconds—but I can still move. I'm working with a physiotherapist at my neurologist's office to see if we can get me going. But I'm still strong as ever. So I'm still pressing over 300 pounds. 

I'm an old school body builder. I lift. I've trained with competition winners, power lifting competition winners. So I'm definitely more old school, and I found that having that strength helps keep my legs moving, because the fitness slows down the degenerative process of the disease. 

So moving through these difficult times, and especially when my legs were affected recently, I leaned on the community a lot more. And I found that [information about]the benefits physical fitness has with the disease doesn't seem to be really out there. And I impulsively went: more people need to know about this. So that's how the fundraiser came to be.

At the end of June, Anzulovich held a fitness class fundraiser in Langley for MS Canada, an organization that funds research into multiple sclerosis. Although one person came out to support, rain put a damper on the fundraiser. Anzulovich plans to hold a second fundraiser fitness class on July 26 from 1:30 to 4:30pm. Each class is $20, with all proceeds going towards MS Canada. 

Anzulovich: We're doing it again, because I want to spread this information and I want to provide as much—all the proceeds go to MS Canada, and the more we can donate, the more we can give, the closer we get to finding a cure and providing treatment options for people with MS. And then also, you know, getting the information about the disease out there is useful as well. 

When I tell someone I have MS, I can always tell whether or not they know what it is, because their face either goes blank or they'll just slightly nod their head and go, ‘yeah.’ And I know they know—but they don't know unless they have someone with it, or they're in the medical field somehow. So there isn't enough information out there about the disease, and it makes people like me who have it feel awkward, because now I have to go through this whole spiel of explaining what it is. But when people know what it is and they understand what we go through—it's recognition. It feels supportive. It helps us feel seen.

Anzulovich’s fitness classes will take place at Inspire Women’s Fitness in Langley on Saturday, July 26. Participants can choose between a 45 minute circuit class or an hour-long yoga class. Registration is $20. Interested participants should contact Anzulovich at 778-891-6074 or [email protected] to register. Donations can be made online.

Correction: The top of this story has been changed to correct an error. Anzulovich can leg press 300 pounds, not bench press 300 pounds.