My name is Jono, my girlfriend of 10 years, Shae was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) in March 2020 at the age of 24. She has now been battling this dreadful disease for 3 years, trying all manner of treatment options.

Shae’s condition has fluctuated during this time, as is often the case with MS. Currently, however, she is experiencing high activity in the development of new lesions. The reasons for this are never clear, but we feel that we need to keep investigating alternative solutions.

MS has impacted her life quite dramatically, causing her to cease employment in her chosen field of Aged Care and reducing her ability to carry out daily tasks and activities. She is however, a very positive individual and is determined to fight it with everything at her disposal.

Shae is my world and it breaks my heart to see her endure this ongoing struggle.

Please see below, her story, in her own words, and please kindly consider helping her to continue to fight MS in any way you can.

Thank you for your time.

Shae's Story

Hi everyone, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in the year 2020 after a loss of vision that lasted for over a year. This is a very unique and complicated disease characterized by the deterioration of the myelin sheath that protects your nervous system within your brain and spinal cord. This causes a slow or rapid increase in disability as damage to the nervous system results in a range of symptoms impacting mobility, cognition and visual capacities. Simply put, anything can happen and depending upon the amount and location of disease activity it can become quite disabling.

Unfortunately, I am experiencing quite a high rate of disease activity, especially since my most recent MRI. I have been averaging six lesions a year again, and any one lesion can cause debilitating symptoms and has previously affected my mobility and vision already. I once had a lesion that altered my sense of motion for a year causing extreme nausea and vomiting to give you an idea of how unusual and frightening this disease can be.

I also have severe back pain and fatigue which has been impacting my life for several years to the point where I am unable to work and participate fully in many activities that are a part of life. No medication has been able to improve these symptoms and despite my best efforts with alternative therapies available in Australia, I have had only minimal improvement.

There is currently no cure for Multiple Sclerosis. Conventional medicine offers treatments that may only slow it down and due to the nature of these lifelong medications, they can cause a range of mild to severe side effects. Having already deeply considered the risk-to-reward ratio of treatment options available, I have decided it is within my best interests that if I want to live a good life free from pain and other complications, I will have to start looking overseas at alternative options.

So you may be wondering, what else am I looking to try?

- The plan. A big leap of faith -

I have decided that I would like to spend at least 3 months in the Peruvian jungle at a retreat to partake in natural plant medicines that have been used for thousands of years by the indigenous people of this land to treat many ailments. I will have to travel overseas to be able to try these alternative therapies in their traditional setting. I already have a retreat center that I would like to go to. This is unfortunately not a cheap endeavor and due to the aggressive nature of Multiple Sclerosis, it will be no easy or quick fix. So I believe this may take several months with no distractions to have any hope of finding a cure.

The hardest part about all of this is asking for your help. I am unable to work and save the money necessary to go on this journey by mid-next year June, so I have to reach outside my comfort zone (and my pride) and humbly ask for any help in raising enough money to spend at least 3 months in the Peruvian jungle. I appreciate any contributions no matter how small. I am eternally grateful to all of you. This has been some of the most challenging and confronting years of my life and I am not ready to give up and accept that my life will be a gradual decline into disability. I want to find a cure and live a life free from pain where I can maybe help others do the same one day.

God bless and thank you to everyone.