Julie Myers’ Stem Cell Transplant

Julie was diagnosed with MS in April 2013. MS is a nasty, unpredictable autoimmune condition that affects the central nervous system. Basically, Julie’s immune system is attacking the coating of her nerve cells. Nerve cells carry messages from the brain to the rest of the body, so MS disrupts these messages and causes Julie to experience symptoms such as MS hug (not as friendly as it sounds; it is a painful pressure around the chest and ribs), intense numbness in her torso, legs, and hands, balance issues, weakness in her legs, significant fatigue, neuropathic pain, and L’Hermitte sign (the sensation of electric shock in the spine).

Over the past several years, Julie has tried increasingly intensive treatments to stop the progression of MS. Although some of these treatments worked for a while, Julie’s body has stopped responding to them. Julie had yet another set of MS relapses in October 2021 and January 2022. An MRI found new lesions on her spinal cord. Given that all of the other treatments have failed, Julie is going to undergo a stem cell transplant in Ottawa

Stem cell transplant as a treatment for MS has shown promising results, but it is not easy. In a nut shell, Julie’s immune system will be annihilated and replaced with a new one. The treatment involves:

1) Mobilization and harvesting stem cells from Julie’s bone marrow

2) Completely obliterating Julie’s current immune system

3) Replanting the stem cells back into Julie’s body where they will grow into a “new” immune system that hopefully won’t attack her nerve cells.

Given the intensity of this treatment, Julie is required to live in Ottawa for 4 months (May through September, 2022). In an effort to keep her immune system from further attacking her nerve cells until the treatment begins, she has been undergoing chemotherapy at the Sault Area Hospital since February 2022.

As you can imagine, being off of work and living in Ottawa for 4 months is costly. Funds raised will be used to offset expenses not covered by insurance and other programs (e.g., accommodations).

One final note: Although it took some persuading, Julie allowed me to start this fundraiser on her behalf on one condition: “I want it to be clear that if I end up with extra money that I don’t require for expenses, I will donate it back to the Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation program at the Ottawa Hospital.”