Cristina was diagnosed with Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis in 2017 and it was a devastating blow to her life. I met Cristina when we started university back in 1987 and we've been been good friend ever since. She's been through a lot in recent years: she divorced her husband and he moved abroad, then her father passed away and shortly afterwards her mother passed away too. Her only family are her teenage daughter, whom she looks after on her own, and her two young sisters, who cannot help her because of their own personal problems (one of them also suffers from MS). Cristina is an intelligent, hard working, kind, resiliant and an amazing single mother, so she deserves a chance to overcome this debilitating condition so that she can carry on looking after her daughter and have a better quality of life.

Her only hope is a treatment called Haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), which is an intense chemotherapy treatment for MS. It aims to stop the damage MS causes by wiping out and then regrowing one's immune system, using one's stem cells. This treatment is only available privately and to help Cristina pay for the treatment, she needs your help.

I'll be travelling to Moscow, Russia, where the treatment will take place in January and February this year. I'll pay for all my expenses and the money I'm fundraising is to help Cristina pay for some of the treatment, travel and maintenance of her daughter while Cristina is away from home for 30 days. I'll be there for a few days to support her when she's having chemotherapy and will be feeling very vulnerable.

I'm happy to volunteer my services as a private chef and/or cookery teacher in exchange for donations, so please feel free to contact me to book a time for yourself or as a gift to someone else.

Thank you very much in advance for your support. Let's beat MS once and for all!!