Defeat MS

Hi,

My name is Bret.  In October 2013, my beautiful wife and mother of our 2 children, Holly, started experiencing a lot of different symptoms. Extreme Dizziness and Vertigo, Numbness, Chest Pain, Excruciating headaches, Fatigue, and Blurred Vision just to name a few.  Some symptoms came and went, some stayed... They were aggressive and spontaneous.  ER trip after ER trip, nobody had any answers. Scary and a little frustrating.... After a few months some friends suggested that we should go see a neurologist, so we did.  In April 2014, Holly was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Our whole little world was stopped in an instant.... All the questions that flooded my mind.. what? How could this be?  We are both only 26 years old.... This isn't happening...   After some MRI's and a spinal tap, the diagnosis was confirmed by a second opinion.  Devistated? Yes.... However, we were determined that we weren't going to let this "MS" win. I started researching everything I could to find out more about this disease and what I could do... because I am a man, and surely I can fix this......  The truth is, I can't... but God can, and we still believe that holly will be healed of this disease.  I now claim that we (as a family) have been diagnosed with MS, because we are a team and we will face this together.  I could go on and on about our story, but everybody has one... and there are a lot of people who receive much worse news than ours. We are just so thankful that we had a diagnosis and that while there is no medicine currently to cure MS, that they do have medicine that helps to suppress the symptoms and slow the progression of it.  

It has taken me a long time to get to this point where I would ask someone else for their hard earned money to help us out in this situation.  We have always taken care of our own bills, our own responsibilities and not putting ourselves in debt.  My wife and I both have full time jobs, working overtime when we can and putting our extra money towards these bills. She has had to take some time off because of her symptoms and to do steroid therapy. All of this puts another strain on our finances and makes life a little harder.

Since October of 2013, there were many more test, therapy, medications, etc that have taken their part in providing us with financial difficulties.  All of these things resulted in very large out of pocket expenses even though we do have health insurance.  Holly has to inject herself daily with a medication called Copaxone. Not only is it painful, bruising, swelling, etc... it is expensive.  Thankfully our health insurance covers a large portion of her medication, if not the medication alone would cost us around $60,000 annually.  With medical technology advancing everyday, they are coming out with more medicine for people with MS... with the hope to one day have a cure for this disease. 

I want to say that this is the strongest, toughest, sweetest, most caring woman that I have ever known.  She is a wonderful wife and the best mother to our two children anyone could ask for.  I don't understand why we are having to go through this, but I know that there is a reason.  I am asking you to donate whatever you can to help us get these bills taken care of, Even if it is pennies... we will be grateful. We are excited about the day when we can pay it forward.....  help someone else that needs it. This is for a woman who puts everyone else before herself and has dedicated everything she has to taking care of our family. She doesn't complain about the painful injections, the hurt that she is in daily, the bills, nothing.... Shes just thankful that she has her family.   We are going to beat MS with your help.... Thank you for taking the time to read our story and I pray that God blesses you beyond anything you can imagine.  

We will pay any extra money forward....  http://www.nationalmssociety.org/Chapters/ALC

If you are not familiar with MS, and its symptoms a good website to checkout is   

http://www.nationalmssociety.org/What-is-MS