Me again … it’s been 12 months since I ran the Just Giving page for my friend Dick Mullen to get funding for Stem Cell Replacement Therapy for his Multiple Sclerosis. That page raised an amazing £10,000 and we managed to add to that figure over the year with lots of hard work and fundraising . Dick is one of the nicest, most humble people I know. He never complains and always looks for the positive in any situation and often says ‘there is always someone in the world worse off than you’. I would love him to have the chance of the treatment he needs to help his condition. The treatment Dick needs is going to cost in the region of £40,000, so I’ll let him explain to you what it’s all about in his own words below. Please, please help if you can …

“Hi, I’m raising funding for a stem cell transplant in Russia in order to halt the spread and progression of the Multiple Sclerosis slowly chipping away at my body and brain. HSCT (Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation) is the only known treatment which effectively ‘cures’ the disease. Russia, for many years have built up a track record of successful HSCT Operations with many patients having undergone this treatment with my stage of MS, resulting in the complete eradication of the disease, removing all trace of it in post-op scans, and in some cases even repairing, in part, some of the pre-existing damage done. This therapy, having not been fully tested within the UK, is not currently available on the NHS as a viable MS treatment for my particular stage of the disease forcing myself, and others, to look elsewhere.

As I continue to degrade, the NHS continue to study the efficacy of this treatment and because successful operations around the world have not been part of any ‘clinical trial’ they are understandably unable to accept or include the data in their decision-making process, thus it will take many more years before they can officially accept that the treatment will work for my stage of MS.”