It is with a devastated heart that I write this post in an effort to help my sister’s husband and my nieces and nephew to get some relief with expenses in the hard days and nights that lie ahead for them.




My sister Terri-Lee Verhulst was diagnosed in 2015 with Multiple Sclerosis. She spent the next few years dealing with the side effects of this disease and going through trial medications in an effort to help her live with the diagnosis she was dealt. Finally in 2018 she thought she had an answer when they okayed her for Lemtrada injections.

   Lemtrada is a chemotherapy drug which is administered through a series of IV infusions in an effort to try and slow the growth of lesions to the brain and spine that occur when you have MS and like any other chemo could potentially have serious side effects but has a higher succession rate for putting MS into remission.

   She started her injections and was fortunate enough to have three of the five injections without feeling any sickness or complications. The fourth one didn’t go so well, it spiked her blood pressure and they couldn’t get it down so they decided to wait a couple of months before proceeding with the last one.

   Lemtrada is to be preceded by three more infusions a year after the first five have been administered in order to complete the treatment and she came through the last three infusions better than what we feared after the last one she had.

  The Lemtrada infusions really seemed to work and she was able to actually work and function without all the numbness and pain she had previously had since being diagnosed with this disease.

  Then the worry started when she started feeling numbness again all over her body.

She was sent for an MRI to see what the cause of this could be and discovered her MS had relapsed. The decision to give her three more infusions to try and push the MS back into remission was made and she started last week.

  April 14,15,16 was to be her scheduled infusion dates at the clinic. She started the first one and ended up having a severe allergic reaction where her chest got tight and her breathing wheezy, she was covered in hives and itchy, and her eye swelled almost shut. They had to give her two doses of Benadryl to help with all the effects she had.

Still keeping with the schedule they thought it was ok for her to come in the next day to have the second infusion. She was hooked up to the bag going through the infusion when she told her husband Kyle she didn’t feel right. He asked her where it hurt and she said all over and collapsed on the floor. After realizing she didn’t have a pulse Kyle started CPR on her and continued to do so until someone came that knew what they were doing.

They managed to get a shallow pulse but once in the hospital they determined she had been stopped breathing for at least ten minutes and she was seizing repeatedly. They hooked her up to a ventilator and ran a Cat scan to determine what condition her brain was at this point. Because she was still seizing they couldn’t get an accurate result and had to wait until the next day before trying again.

  Friday after running another scan they concluded there was no brain activity,  it was relayed she had, had a massive heart attack and passed away without any long term suffering.

  Saturday afternoon they allowed us to go in and say our good-byes to her and once they took out her breathing tube within a matter of minutes she slipped away telling us she was ready to go.




Thank you everybody it is greatly appreciated for any of the donations you have been asking how you can make.
Also for anyone wishing to email me a donation directly you can send it to [email redacted].