Local biker with disability joins cross-country TV journey

As soon as she sees her fellow participants in a TV adventure series featuring people with disabilities riding a bicycle across the United States, Dianne Jones can’t help but think it.

“Oh, good grief. I’m a slacker,” laughs Jones, 66, a commercial real estate agent from Lake Barrington. “Even now I feel a little funny about it. There are people much more handicapped than I am.”

Jones, a longtime avid bicyclist with her husband, Doug, starts her leg of the trip in Chicago after taking over the front end of the tandem bike from a blind woman from Wisconsin. Eight days and 400 miles later, Jones gives way in Cleveland to a twice-wounded Iraq War veteran with a traumatic brain injury and lasting wounds in his back. Other riders suffer ills such as Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy.

The ailment that qualifies Jones for a spot in the “Take A Seat” series hosted by British adventurer and filmmaker Dominic Gill began 25 years ago as a minor aggravation.

“I started noticing my hands were tingling and numb,” says Jones, who used to live in Wheaton. “Over the years, it just kept developing.”

That numbness and tingling sensation — the first symptoms of her peripheral neuropathy — spread from her hands to her feet, and now make it difficult to walk.

“I’ve lost my balance and my gait is unsteady,” says Jones. “If I touch something hot, like an oven, I don’t sense that right away.”

She uses a cane now.

“It doesn’t really help the balance issue, but it lets people know that something is wrong,” Jones says. “Without it, people look at you and think you’ve been drinking because you’re veering.”

The Joneses, who are active in the St. Anne Catholic Community in Barrington, have opened their home to different needy causes during the years. One of their former house guests came across Gill and his tandem bicycle in South Dakota and recommended Jones as a candidate for his show.

“She hid the symptoms well,” Gill says of Jones. “It was only obvious to us when she had to hold on to her husband, Doug, to keep her balance.”

Jones’ inspirational ride raises awareness of peripheral neuropathy, which affects 20 million Americans, says Pam Shlemon, president and executive director of the Foundation for Peripheral Neuropathy (www.foundationforpn.org). The charitable agency, which advocates for patients and research, was started in Buffalo Grove in October 2007 by Quill Corp. founder Jack Miller, the Bannockburn entrepreneur and philanthropist, who also has the neurological disorder.

Peripheral neuropathy starts with the tingling and numbness, “but a lot of the time patients ignore that,” says Shlemon, 48, who has been with the foundation since the beginning but only recently discovered that she has the disorder. “They don’t think it’s important enough.”

Jones’ case, like many, is idiopathic, which means it has no known cause. But peripheral neuropathy can be a side effect of other diseases. The disorder develops in about 60 percent of diabetes patients, many cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and people with HIV and AIDS, Shlemon says. Not life-threatening, the disorder generally has no cure and can damage nerves, making it impossible for some patients to stand or use their hands. One form of neuropathy can affect a person’s heart rate, blood pressure, digestive system and other bodily functions.

“It was very enjoyable,” Jones says of her ride for the show, which airs at 8:30 p.m. Monday on the cable network Universal Sports (Comcast channel 251, RCN channel 51, WOW! channel 196 and on the NBC over-the-air station 5.3.) and is available on line at www.universalsports.com/take-a-seat. Jones, who has plans for more bike trips with her husband this summer, says she’s happy for her chance to raise awareness.

“There is probably a reason for all of this,” says Jones, the mother of Bradley, 31, who works for a financial company in Lisle, and Loren, who turns 26 Monday and currently is working as a stunt woman at a theme park in China. “We keep a positive attitude. When you see people really struggling, you thank God every day for the blessings you have.”