Get Maddy to Mexico

Hello, my name is Phil and Maddy is my Wife. I have known Maddy since we were at School and when she was 17 she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. MS is an unpredictable and fairly brutal progressive brain disease. It hasn't stopped her, she went to University, we got married, we had 3 kids and now both run businesses and live in a small corner of Wiltshire, England.

The kind of MS Maddy has and the length of time she has had it means there is zero treatment available in the UK for her. She has never taken anything for it. So far, that’s been ok, Maddy has managed well using restrictive diets, exercise, vitamins, rest, her positivity, her stubbornness, and a lot of cold baths to manage her symptoms. But the MS is now progressing more quickly, and life is becoming more challenging. With no drugs available in the UK, further progression is a medical certainty, and a wheelchair is getting scarily close. Maddy now has more bad days than she has good. Even walking our children to school and back – a few hundred yards or so, is often tricky.

There is a hopeful new treatment called HSCT that is currently in the trial phase in the UK. Frustratingly, Maddy doesn’t fit the criteria for the trial. It could be a very long wait before the NHS can offer her this treatment - if ever. However, there is a centre of excellence out in Mexico called Clinical Ruiz that has been performing HSCT on people with the type of MS Maddy has, for over 20 years.

 http://hsctmexico.com/ms_landing.php?gclid=CjwKCAiAwomeBhBWEiwAM43YIPCUlasUpGjIK2Fg3aQBrMPY9AXwbAtIo36enl4DaLVrJ3No-hWFYBoCEUYQAvD_BwE 

If we can get Maddy to Mexico to have HSCT there is a 75% chance her MS will be stopped. It won’t be cured – the damage done will remain but it will hopefully not progress further. She would need to stay in a medical facility in Mexico for a month and have chemotherapy to eradicate her faulty immune system and a stem cell transplant to help reboot it.

It is going to cost £50,000. We either raise this money and do something, or we don’t and Maddy gets steadily and inevitably sicker.

So I am going to do what I do and run. On May 20th this year I am going to run 10 marathons in 10 days in 10 counties, Maddy’s cousin David Hine will be joining me. We will start in Cornwall and finishing at Home in Wiltshire. We are recruiting runners to join David and I for a half or full marathon along the way or even to cycle alongside me. Maddy is going to do what she does – organise a fundraising Ball and Auction and some local family fun events. We are going to do whatever else we can to raise the cash and get her on a plane to Mexico. Any support of any kind is incredibly gratefully received.

Information and updates on all our fundraising will appear on our social media over the coming months.

#maddy2mexico