Cure Darren's Multiple Sclerosis!
Donation protected
My name is Darren Roe. I am a 26 year old full time college student at Bakersfield College. I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in August of 2011.
I was working as a professional driver at the time I found out. One day at work my legs became tired. Beyond tired. Exhausted. I fell to the ground walking back to my truck. My legs were hurting for a couple days before this which I brushed off as just being tired from hard long oilfield work. When I fell there was no getting up. I laid there for a little bit and eventually I got the strength back to get back to my truck. I got sent home from work that day thinking I was just super tired and needed to rest up. In the morning I woke up completely paralyzed from the neck down! This was the scariest day of my life.
Luckily my girlfriend at the time was there and helped me call an ambulance. I got to the hospital and had every test done on me known to man. They even wanted to cut into my spine and "look around" at one point. Finally after seeing lesions on my spine and brain on my MRIs and doing a spinal tap I was diagnosed with MS. At that point I was relieved just to have a reason for why my body was doing this! Little did I know that MS is a debilitating auto immune disease that can't be cured by medicine.
I went on drugs like Betasaron which are self-administered injections every other day which only purpose was to make me not progress anymore and after 2 years I was still getting worse! I finally got put on a pill for called Tecfidera but have sense been taken off of that by my neurologist because of recent sudden deaths from the drug crashing peoples white blood count. Even though I got steroids which brought most of my body back to original baseline my legs never fully recovered.
I walked with a cane and with a walker for a while before it just became to painful to do so. Now I use a wheelchair whenever I go out of the house and a cane just getting around in my home. This is my new baseline and honestly I dont know if I will ever get better than I am now.
I heard about this study that Dr. Burt was doing at Northwestern Medical Hospital in Chicago and of course I was interested. It is showing amazing results in people with all kinds of auto immune diseases. I did my research and contacted them to see if I could be evaluated. They gave me the ok so I flew to chicago and had MRIs and a couple other tests and then saw Dr. Burt. He told me that I have 20+ new enhanced lesions on my brain and spine since my MRI in 2011 and that he would be willing to treat me off study because he believes that the treatment will really really help me. Right now all I have stopping me from curing this disease is money. My medicare is going to pay for my $200k treatment all but $2500. All I need is that plus flight, hotel, and living expenses for downtown chicago for 2+ months while I go through treatment.
If you can spare any money please donate and help me put this horrible disease behind me! Anything helps save my life!
I was working as a professional driver at the time I found out. One day at work my legs became tired. Beyond tired. Exhausted. I fell to the ground walking back to my truck. My legs were hurting for a couple days before this which I brushed off as just being tired from hard long oilfield work. When I fell there was no getting up. I laid there for a little bit and eventually I got the strength back to get back to my truck. I got sent home from work that day thinking I was just super tired and needed to rest up. In the morning I woke up completely paralyzed from the neck down! This was the scariest day of my life.
Luckily my girlfriend at the time was there and helped me call an ambulance. I got to the hospital and had every test done on me known to man. They even wanted to cut into my spine and "look around" at one point. Finally after seeing lesions on my spine and brain on my MRIs and doing a spinal tap I was diagnosed with MS. At that point I was relieved just to have a reason for why my body was doing this! Little did I know that MS is a debilitating auto immune disease that can't be cured by medicine.
I went on drugs like Betasaron which are self-administered injections every other day which only purpose was to make me not progress anymore and after 2 years I was still getting worse! I finally got put on a pill for called Tecfidera but have sense been taken off of that by my neurologist because of recent sudden deaths from the drug crashing peoples white blood count. Even though I got steroids which brought most of my body back to original baseline my legs never fully recovered.
I walked with a cane and with a walker for a while before it just became to painful to do so. Now I use a wheelchair whenever I go out of the house and a cane just getting around in my home. This is my new baseline and honestly I dont know if I will ever get better than I am now.
I heard about this study that Dr. Burt was doing at Northwestern Medical Hospital in Chicago and of course I was interested. It is showing amazing results in people with all kinds of auto immune diseases. I did my research and contacted them to see if I could be evaluated. They gave me the ok so I flew to chicago and had MRIs and a couple other tests and then saw Dr. Burt. He told me that I have 20+ new enhanced lesions on my brain and spine since my MRI in 2011 and that he would be willing to treat me off study because he believes that the treatment will really really help me. Right now all I have stopping me from curing this disease is money. My medicare is going to pay for my $200k treatment all but $2500. All I need is that plus flight, hotel, and living expenses for downtown chicago for 2+ months while I go through treatment.
If you can spare any money please donate and help me put this horrible disease behind me! Anything helps save my life!
Organizer
Darren Roe
Organizer
Bakersfield, CA