'I need to go to Russia': Irish mum needs help raising €75K

Leigh McBride was diagnosed with MS in 2009, a condition which has significantly deteriorated since the birth of her youngster daughter. 

Sadly, Leigh, who is mum to Georgia, six, and Amelia, 18 months, is physically incapable of being the mum she wants to be.

Simple tasks that others take for granted are the things she struggles with. 

Just getting up and having a morning shower leaves her exhausted; she cannot walk her daughter the 10 minutes it would take to get to school and she is afraid to carry her youngest for fear of dropping her.

"I do not take my children to the park on my own as I do not feel that I can keep them or myself safe."

Her symptoms include: daily nerve pain, transient vision loss, numbness in all of her limbs, balance issues, foot drop, immense weakness, loss of power in her hands and cognitive impairment.

Leigh, from Dundrum in Dublin, also experiences emotional fatigue and anxiety and lives in constant fear of what the future holds for her.

"Fear of the future is almost as crippling as the disease itself."

Thankfully, there is one option for Leigh; Dr. Dennis Federenko has successfully treated hundreds of MS sufferers at the National Pirogov Medical Centre in Moscow. 

And the mum-of-two has been asked to ravel to Russia in August of this year for Hematopioetic Stem Cell Transplant (HSCT) – life changing stem cell treatment.

So how does it work?

Put simply, the idea is to reboot her system using a combination of harvesting Leigh's own stem cells, high dose chemo to kill off existing faulty immune system and then re-infusing the stem cells to create a brand new immune system free of any memory of MS.

The aim of this treatment is to halt any further progression of her MS and alleviate some of her current symptoms. 

But this is one thing stopping her: money. 

The mum does not not qualify to have this treatment in Europe as I don’t meet the strict criteria as my MS has moved into a more progressive stage. 

Leigh needs €75,000 to cover flights, treatment and after care. 

"It sounds a massive amount, and it is, but with your help I can get my life back and be the mother and wife that I so desperately want to be."

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