Ann Romney opens up about battle with MS, family in memoir
Since her husband's second run at the White House in 2012, Ann Romney has traded in the presidential campaign trail, for a campaign of a different sort--one that is more personal and global than anything she's done before.
In her new memoir, "In This Together: My Story," Romney opens up about her fight against multiple sclerosis and her brave journey to recovery.
Romney, who was first diagnosed in 1998 and is now in remission, expressed hope that her story would be a "message of hope" for others.
"I was in a very bad place, a very scary and vulnerable place, and now I'm strong so lean on me," she said on "CBS This Morning" Monday.
Romney also founded the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, which aims to find treatments and cures for five of the world's most complex neurologic diseases: multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's, ALS, Parkinson's and brain tumors. According to the center, more than 50 million people worldwide suffer from these diseases.
"I want people to have hope that there will be a ... vaccine for Alzheimer's, that Alzheimer's will be like polio was, that we are going to tackle some of the biggest issues," she said about her goals for the center.
In addition to Western medicine, Romney also looked to alternative forms of therapy, including reflexology and horseback riding.
"The Western medicine helped me stop the progression of the disease but left me weak and fatigued," she said. "So then I had to figure out things to break through this ice that I felt my body was locked in."
But Romney put the greatest emphasis on the importance of having her family by her side through her journey, particularly the "extraordinary partnership" she has with her husband, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
"We're in this together and we're much stronger when we're together, and the family has always been a huge piece," she said.
Since forgoing another presidential bid in January, Mitt Romney has stayed out of the frenzy surrounding the 2016 elections. While his wife admitted that she enjoyed watching from the sidelines, wouldn't weigh in on whether she or her family would support a Donald Trump candidacy: "We are going to be cheering our candidates along and that at the end of the day, that we'll have a candidate that we'll all gather around."
"In This Together: My Story" will be available in bookstores nationwide Tuesday. All proceeds will be donated to the Ann Romney Center for Neurological Diseases.