Colorado deputy with MS to run one of country's biggest marathons to fundraise for a cure

Multiple sclerosis, or MS, is a disease that causes the immune system to attack the protective sheath that covers nerve fibers. Symptoms and severity of the disease vary from person to person. In some cases, patients lose the ability to walk.

There's no cure for MS, but one Colorado man living with the disease hopes his perseverance will help raise money for MS research.

By day, you'll find John Carrasco running. But at night, you'll find him working the graveyard shift at the Douglas County Jail.

 "Every 30 minutes I'd walk through, check on every single person," Carrasco said, while demonstrating his typical patrol.

For 18 years, Carrasco has been a deputy for the Douglas County Sheriff's Office.

"It just gives me, like, a sense of purpose. And I like it. I think a lot of people, they see the big high-speed chase on TV, but they don't realize they might be here for the next several years while they go through trial," Carrasco said.

It's a job he has excelled at, even after learning he had multiple sclerosis in 2012.

"I was actually running, I think it was a 5K for Christmas in Wash Park, and I stumbled strange at the end of the run, and I noticed that my foot was numb," Carrasco said.

At the time, Carrasco didn't know what life with the neurodegenerative disease would look like.

"You only read the worst of things, right? So people don't write down much unless it's something terrible. So I'm picturing wheelchairs and, you know, not being able to walk, not able to work, not fun at all," Carrasco said.

 But over a decade later, he's still walking the halls of the jail.

"My right foot goes numb, on and off. Fingertips will go numb. Every once in a while I get something called optic neuritis. So it's just pain in my eye. It kind of feels like I got punched in the eye... It doesn't impact me too terribly day to day. It's just the unknown. I think that's how it impacts me. I don't know how my day is going to be. I don't know how my month is going to be. So far, so good. Fingers crossed, but I don't know," Carrasco said. "I've been as lucky as I could be. I've met people who have it way worse."

And he sure hasn't stopped running.

"I think I can benefit from staying active, staying healthy. I just enjoy it," Carrasco said. "I don't want to stop, and then one day not be able to do it anymore."

Soon, Deputy Carrasco will compete in the New York City Marathon.

 "Today, at some point, I've got to run four miles. Tomorrow, I'll run 16," Carrasco said.

His run will raise money for the MS Society, a nonprofit that funds research for a cure and supports those affected by the disease.

"When I first got diagnosed, I didn't know anything about it. Their website was the one I went to. Their information is what I read," Carrasco said.

Carrasco says treatments have already advanced since he was diagnosed, but right now they can only slow the progress of the disease. That's why Carrasco won't stop running toward a better future for everyone with his condition.

"I want to prove to them that it's not a sentence to a wheelchair immediately, necessarily, that you can keep going, you can do more than you think," Carrasco said.

The New York Marathon will be Nov. 2. You can support Deputy Carrasco here.