Help Sarah Fight MS
Spende geschützt
We are raising money for my sister Sarah Blagbrough (was Pittock) to travel to Russia in October 2016 for treatment that could halt the progression of the cruel disease that has been attacking her body for the past 15 years.
Sarah worked as a nurse and was extremely busy in the community looking after people with learning disabilities. She was a strong swimmer, winning many awards, and led a full and active life. In 1997, shortly after the birth of her son Connor, she began to feel that something wasn’t quite right. It took another three years before she was given a diagnosis – Multiple Sclerosis (MS).
15 years later she has severe disabling fatigue, is unable to walk without crutches and wears ankle supports to prevent foot drop. Outside she uses a wheelchair.
Her other symptoms include dizziness (the gravity defying, room-spinning sort), itching (skin-scratched-raw itching), numbness (the can’t feel your feet and legs, hands, arms, neck, head, face or body type), forgetfulness (brain fog: she can’t think straight, speak straight – in fact she feels she can’t do anything straight), headaches (the banging your head against a wall type) and the pain. Every. Single. Day.
MS is an autoimmune disease. Sarah’s immune system, which normally helps to fight off infections, is attacking her body. It thinks the myelin (a substance that protects the nerve fibres in the central nervous system) shouldn’t be there and so it attacks it, stripping it from the nerve fibres leaving “scars” along them.
Nerve fibres carry messages between the brain and the rest of the body. Scarring disrupts these messages – they get distorted, slow down or don’t get through at all.
Sarah’s MS is progressing. Each year she can do less and less.
She is lucky enough to have a family that loves her and an amazingly supportive husband and two great kids. But she needs our help.
I think she had given up on any hope of improving her situation. I think she misses the small things in life. Like going for a walk. Not having pain. Being able to sleep through the night. She tells us her brain isn’t what it was.
But now she has been offered treatment in Russia and for the first time in many years she feels hope again.
Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation (HSCT) has traditionally been used to treat certain types of cancer; it will “switch off” Sarah’s immune system and then reboot it. This rebooted immune system will have “forgotten” she has MS – thus the disease’s progression will be stopped in its tracks.
This treatment is not a cure and it can't fix what has already been done by the disease. Damage to her spinal cord, brain and other areas are irreparable. But it should stop her getting any worse and offer hope for her future.
Even in Russia the waiting list for this treatment can be up to two years. However, Sarah has been offered a place sooner due to a cancellation. She was offered this place rather than wait the two years because the doctors thought it would be too late by then. So it’s now or never really.
Please support Sarah by donating whatever you can afford.
Thank you for listening and I will be forever grateful to anyone able to help towards sending my sister for this pioneering treatment and kickstarting her life again.
Thank you.
Jamie
Sarah worked as a nurse and was extremely busy in the community looking after people with learning disabilities. She was a strong swimmer, winning many awards, and led a full and active life. In 1997, shortly after the birth of her son Connor, she began to feel that something wasn’t quite right. It took another three years before she was given a diagnosis – Multiple Sclerosis (MS).
15 years later she has severe disabling fatigue, is unable to walk without crutches and wears ankle supports to prevent foot drop. Outside she uses a wheelchair.
Her other symptoms include dizziness (the gravity defying, room-spinning sort), itching (skin-scratched-raw itching), numbness (the can’t feel your feet and legs, hands, arms, neck, head, face or body type), forgetfulness (brain fog: she can’t think straight, speak straight – in fact she feels she can’t do anything straight), headaches (the banging your head against a wall type) and the pain. Every. Single. Day.
MS is an autoimmune disease. Sarah’s immune system, which normally helps to fight off infections, is attacking her body. It thinks the myelin (a substance that protects the nerve fibres in the central nervous system) shouldn’t be there and so it attacks it, stripping it from the nerve fibres leaving “scars” along them.
Nerve fibres carry messages between the brain and the rest of the body. Scarring disrupts these messages – they get distorted, slow down or don’t get through at all.
Sarah’s MS is progressing. Each year she can do less and less.
She is lucky enough to have a family that loves her and an amazingly supportive husband and two great kids. But she needs our help.
I think she had given up on any hope of improving her situation. I think she misses the small things in life. Like going for a walk. Not having pain. Being able to sleep through the night. She tells us her brain isn’t what it was.
But now she has been offered treatment in Russia and for the first time in many years she feels hope again.
Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation (HSCT) has traditionally been used to treat certain types of cancer; it will “switch off” Sarah’s immune system and then reboot it. This rebooted immune system will have “forgotten” she has MS – thus the disease’s progression will be stopped in its tracks.
This treatment is not a cure and it can't fix what has already been done by the disease. Damage to her spinal cord, brain and other areas are irreparable. But it should stop her getting any worse and offer hope for her future.
Even in Russia the waiting list for this treatment can be up to two years. However, Sarah has been offered a place sooner due to a cancellation. She was offered this place rather than wait the two years because the doctors thought it would be too late by then. So it’s now or never really.
Please support Sarah by donating whatever you can afford.
Thank you for listening and I will be forever grateful to anyone able to help towards sending my sister for this pioneering treatment and kickstarting her life again.
Thank you.
Jamie
Organisator
Jamie Pittock
Organisator