Help Alister Beat MS
THE STORY
Hello, this is our new fundraising page for the second phase of Alister's Stem Cell treatment.
For those of you not having followed our story so far this is an introduction written by Alister's Mum:
We would like to introduce you to ALISTER, he is 39 years old and has Multiple Sclerosis.
From a very young age he was always full-on and made the most out of life, with his charm and lively character.
At 15 he came home one day and told us he had got himself a weekend job in a motorbike shop. The owner had been a British Superbike racer and would regale Alister with tales of the excitement and skill of motorbike racing.
Alister started racing at club level and before we knew it, with his skill and confidence, he was racing 600s at British Championship Level, even featuring in a fly-on-the-wall TV series 'Natural Born Racers.'
He moved to London to see what opportunities lay there and was soon making his way in the building trade and on the back of his contacts we started a family business doing contracting work. During this time he met Gemma and fell in love. In 2011 they married and believed their future to be rosy.
In 2012 he started having episodes where he couldn't walk, we thought he had just been partying too much! But then he went blind for 2 days, he was diagnosed with progressive MS. It was devastating news for us all. He was very fortunate to be put on a new drug which slows the degeneration. He has been on that drug for 8 years now and although it has definitely bought him time, he is getting progressively more debilitated and is struggling to come to terms with his limitations.
In 2014 his son was born bringing great joy to us all, Alister's happiness and pride in his son is immense and it is wanting to do the best for his family that keeps him positive.
It saddens him that he cannot be the Dad he wants to be, he couldn't even take him out on his own as a toddler because he might run off and Alister wouldn't be able to catch him. He cannot play football (his favourite game) with him, or run about with him and has just now finally resorted to using a wheelchair so they can go out as a family for a walk, which is something that Alister finds very hard to come to terms with, as for him it's an admission of defeat and losing his independence and ability to look after his family.
OUR HOPE
When Alister heard about Stem Cell Therapy, he researched it well and found testimonies from many MS sufferers who had benefited from it, getting back to living normal lives. Ronnie understands that daddy has 'wobbly legs' and cannot do what his friends daddies can do and he is very fortunate to have a supermum who makes sure he has plenty of activity, but when he heard about the possibility of Alister having stem cell treatment, his first words were 'daddy if you have this treatment, does that mean you will no longer have wobbly legs?'
Due to the demise of our family business a few years ago, we are not in the position to afford this treatment, but after a successful initial campaign we were able to get him out to Panama for his first round of Mesenchymal Stem Cell Treatment ( see update to read how that went) and now we are looking to raise a further £25,000 to get him out to Panama again for the second round of treatment at the Stem Cell Institute.
MESENCHYMAL LINK:
This will keep the immune system in check and stimulate the repair and regeneration of the inflamed and damaged tissues, this will give him the biggest opportunity of his life - a chance to be a proper Daddy and run with his son.
This type of treatment unfortunately is not yet available in the UK.
Thank you for your time reading this story and if there is any way, however small in which you can help, we would be eternally grateful.
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