Hope for MS

    

Don’t be afraid to step into uncertainty. Leaving room for Him to show up is called faith.

As we are preparing for our next adventure this will be something we will have to strive for. 

Many people in my life may not know my dad. He moved to Alberta 15 years ago and we now only get short visits where we go there or he comes here. 

My dad has always represented strength to me. He was the kind of dad who took care of my screw-ups and never got mad at me. He was the kind of dad that packed us all up in a van when I was 10 and drove us down to Mexico where we lived with a family of Mennonites for a week , there we learnt so much about how different cultures live and how just because people are different doesn't mean they are not worth knowing. My dads always been the type of person who loves people and people are naturally drawn to him.

My dad gave Dean a job and a place to live when my brother brought him home. He also walked me down the isle when we married 3 years later. 

I love my dad...always will. No matter where life has takes us and how many times we all screw up, love is always worth it.

Our love must not be a thing of words and fine talk. It must be a thing of action and sincerity. 1 John 3:1

My dad told me a few years ago how much he loves his grandchildren. When I see him watch them growing up, I see how much he does.

He loves it when we come to visit and he takes us into the foothills to show us cool waterfalls and wild life.

He's the kind of grandpa that lets Miranda give him a manicure...with polish.

        He's the kind of grandpa that Colton loves to hug.

He's the kind of grandpa who likes to show his grand kids new adventures.

This is my dad Ray. 

I love him and want the best for him.

A few years ago, my dad, was thrown a curve ball. He started feeling bad, very unusual for him. It took a long time for the doctors to diagnose him with MS. It took so long because MS is not something a 65 year old man gets. Well that's my dad, always has to do things differently. So after the diagnosis things changed a bit as he finally got some pain relief and some ways of dealing with how he was feeling and what was happening to him. But it was still so different. He was used to getting in his van and coming to see us if he wanted to. He was working doing all sorts of jobs around town and now he had to give this all up. For my dad, this felt like a death sentence. This is not the way he saw himself living his life. Shut in his house unable to move the way he was used to and unable to get through the day without severe pain.


A person with MS can suffer almost any neurological symptom or sign, including changes in sensation such as loss of sensitivity or tingling, pricking or numbness (hypoesthesia and paraesthesia), muscle weakness, clonus, muscle spasms, or difficulty in moving; difficulties with coordination and balance (ataxia); problems in speech (dysarthria) or swallowing (dysphagia), visual problems (nystagmus, optic neuritisincluding phosphenes,^[13][14] or diplopia), fatigue, acute or chronic pain, and bladder and bowel difficulties.^[1] Cognitive impairment of varying degrees and emotional symptoms of depression or unstable mood are also common.^[1] Uhthoff's phenomenon, an exacerbation of extant symptoms due to an exposure to higher than usual ambient temperatures, and Lhermitte's sign, an electrical sensation that runs down the back when bending the neck, are particularly characteristic of MS although not specific.^[1] The main clinical measure of disability progression and symptom severity is the Expanded Disability Status Scale or EDSS.^[15]

Then the glimmer of hope came. A doctor in Europe seemed to find a "cure" for MS. Yeah!! 

So we waited to hear more about it and better yet, when would dad get his life back and get this surgery??

When you are waiting it seems to take for ever, for governments and doctors to make decisions that could be so important to our lives. It seems that the verdict is that they will not be doing any MS surgeries in Canada in the near future.
Then we started to hear about people going out of the country to get these surgeries. My dad took very little time to decide that this was what he would do. If at all possible, he would do everything in his power to get better.

The Liberation Treatment

The Liberation Treatment is a potentially ground breaking discovering for the treatment of Multiple Sclerosis. It is thanks to the research of Dr Paolo Zamboni and his team that we now know about this treatment.

Dr Zamboni began his research into MS with the desire to cure his wife. Unhappy with the answers that he could find he decided to research what actually cause MS himself.

His initial research related to why the location of lesion in the brains of MS patients were all venocentric. He rationed that there must be a link between the veins and the occurrence of these lesions. And with further study he found that the brain damage was all counter to the flow of blood, meaning that it likely had something to do with the drainage of blood back to the heart.

Next he started to study both MS and normal patients to determine what differences he could find between them, hoping for an explanation. What he found was that in MS patients he could show that 100% of the cases he tested had abnormal veins, he called this condition CCSVI. Specifically that there were certain points where the veins coming from the brain along the next and upper chest were either restricting or blocking the flow of blood. His research proved that in all cases he found at least two abnormalities in the veins.

The next step he took was to attempt to treat these abnormalities, hoping that by doing so he would be able to cure the disease. By all current accounts of this still on going study the results have been very positive.

Although the number of people who have received the treatment are still few, those that have are living with reduced fatigue, fewer or no relapses and their MS symptoms are slowing being alleviated.

Since there has not been enough studies to prove it, we cannot say that this is a cure, but we sure hope it is.

So that brings me to today. Dean and I are going with my dad to Costa Rica to get the Liberation treatment that will hopefully give my dad some relief from the daily pain and symptoms of MS.

We are flying to Calgary to pick him up and will be there with him in Costa Rica as he undergoes the treatment and the 12 days of rehabilitation after. I feel very blessed to be able to spend these days with him that will be filled with hope and excitement for the future. We are also trying to help him with the cost of the treatment by having a raffle. We will be raffling off an all expense paid guided fishing trip with a choice of either Grand Rapids or Pine Falls.  For those who don't like to fish, there is an option of choosing a meat pkg. which will includes walleye, pork, venison and beef.  We will be selling the tickets and all the proceeds will go to dad to help finance the $18,000 trip for freedom from pain and immobility. 

To buy a ticket for a chance to win the fishing trip or meat pkg. and support our dad send us a message and we will get you signed up or look for tickets around town.

The other way that you could support this trip is to go to this Chip in site where you can safely donate cash to support dad's trip.
We thank you in advance for your prayers and support as we prepare for this next step in our families life.

These are dad's grandchildren. The ones who will be at home waiting to hear the good news of their grandpa feeling better. They will be able to spend this next summer with dad, camping and fishing and he will be watching them grow up.