
Help Donna with progressive MS!
Donation protected
Hello all! My mom Donna Pierce has been battling progressive MS for about 16 years now. She was diagnosed with this incurable disease in 2001 after having some symptoms of numbness in her fingers and toes, and well as headaches that were so painful she could hardly function. After numerous tests she found out she had this horrible disease. This was the worst news she could have received. It was devastating especially when you have two young daughters who need and depend on their mother for everything in life. She has been coping/dealing with many issues that this disease brings along with it. As the years pass by,she only gets worse. She has the progressive kind....not the relapse/remission you see many television commercials for. There is NO TREATMENT that can help my mother. Currently she is on Capoxon. Which is an injection she receives from a nurse who comes to our house every other day. She has tried everything over the last 16 years from chemo treatments , which was called Tysabri, a pill form that FiNally came out, which was useless, to harcore needle shots that she would get directly into her muscles once a week called Avanex which was extremely painful to say the least. The Tysabri she would get monthly, but could only be on it for 12 months...we really were hopeful this may have worked bc it would kill all her bad cells and they would grow back normal again, but we were so wrong. The reason she had to stop after a year was because one of the side affects could have caused her to get brain cancer. Horrible. (Many medicines to prolong the affects MS have this side affect. especially bc my mother carriers a certain virus inside her that can trigger it.) Currently she is getting weaker and weaker. She is dependant on a scooter we have on the second floor of our house. To get out of the house for her takes alot of effort since we are in a three level home. She must try and walk down about 4 stairs, and out the door. We use many methods to get her out..like wheel chair to stairs, ramp out the door, and wheel chair to the car. And this is necessary for doctors appointments and such. Which many times she has to cancel because she is too weak to do it. Currently her bedroom is upstairs in our house and she lives with myself, Lauren her daughter, my boyfriend Brian and my sister Kaitlyn. I want to help my mother...that's why I stay. She has an electric chair that takes her up a flight of about 12 stairs...then she holds onto bars to get into the bathroom. Which is so difficult and she most of the times falls once in there. Then she will use a walker to sit on and push herself, backwards, to her bedroom. Getting on the bed is another struggle. She used the arm bars we have in place and needs the assistance to get up. She is a strong woman inside and it pains me to see her this way. What we want to do is make our downstairs, level one, and the garage turned into a permanent bedroom for her to stay in. We want to make a mother daughter home and add a shower to the bathroom down there. This also costs alot of money to do. She is on a fixed income and definitely cannot afford this on her own! We all help out with the bills and such there but we are do not have enough money to do this. We are asking if there is anything anyone can give to help my mother out and be able to have her own little "place" downstairs so she is comfortable on one level of the house we would really appreciate it! Today she took a HUGE fall down our stairs coming from her room to go downstairs while noone was home. (And this is why i had enough courage to ask for some help for her!) I received a frantic call, thank god she had her cell nearby, of my mother on the floor screaming that she had fallen and she couldnt Get up. Thank GoD that's all that happened and she didn't break her neck or back while falling! Brian ran home from work and helped her, since i work an hour from home. So my mother donna would never ask for help by anyone....but we NEED this to happen because I am not prepared to get a phonecall with any other news about my mother while being home alone. Thank you all and Donna , ny beautiful Mother, really needs this. God Bless!
Organizer and beneficiary
Lauren Dickie
Organizer
Middletown, NJ
Donna Pierce
Beneficiary