By Callum Ludwig
An amazing fundraising effort will allow Wandin East resident Lauren Sneddon to access treatment with a high chance of drastically improving her quality of life.
In early September 2021, Ms Sneddon’s health started to deteriorate and after a total of two lumber punctures, three CT scans, four MRIs and 10 blood tests, she was diagnosed with a form of the chronic neurological disease Multiple Sclerosis, or MS on 23 March 2022.
On Saturday 29 October, Ms Sneddon’s childhood friend Kane Williams ran 100km from Lilydale Lake up the Warburton trail to Warburton and back and a gala was organsied and held in November to raise funds for her Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation (HSCT) treatment in Monterrey, Mexico.
Ms Sneddon said that Mr Williams did incredibly well and the gala was phenomenal.
“I started Kane’s run with him on a bike, and did 20km which was huge for me, but it was so unbelievable tough for him, he was in quite a bit of pain by the end. In the 48 hours from the time he started, his efforts raised over $5000 alone,” she said.
“For the gala, a lot of my friends and family reached out to entered friends and the community and some of the items we were able to sell were enormous. We raised just under $50,000 in that one night, there was something for everyone and everybody, from $50 up to $15,000.”
Some of the items sold at the gala included four rounds of golf at the exclusive The National Gold Club in Cape Schnack, two tickets to Mary Poppins at Her Majesty’s Theatre, a night’s accommodation at Crown and the $15,000 corporate box for 15 people.
Ms Sneddon said she would like to hope that her story has had an impact on raising awareness for MS.
“People have started to follow my journey, in the hopes understanding it a bit better for their loved ones that may have it or for themselves who may have it. I really am hoping that it leads to more people being able to get access to a treatment like HSCT either here in Australia or at least has people asking more questions about it,” she said.
“MS is something that in many ways can be so silent, because it’s happening inside of you even though there are physical signs. It’s one of those things with six degrees of separation, someone tends to know someone who’s got MS even though it is a small percentage of people who have it in Australia.”
The gala raised a total of $46,904.05 and together with the $74,617 raised on the GoFundMe page, Ms Sneddon is going to be able to travel to Mexico with her mother in support to access the potentially life-changing HSCT treatment, which has successfully helped over 3000 patients to halt their MS at an impressive 80-90 per cent success rate.
Ms Sneddon is scheduled to make the journey at the beginning of March 2023, just short of two years since her diagnosis.
Ms Sneddon said her condition has deteriorated a bit since she last spoke to the Star Mail in October, but it may just be an inflammation.
“The numbness in my hands and toes is a constant thing, but the fatigue side of MS has struck me worse than it has at any other time since my diagnosis, I would say I’ve probably deteriorated a little bit and this may just be an inflammation so I’m hoping that it does go away when I have the treatment, but the fatigue side of MS has probably struck me much worse than it has at any other time in my in in my disease,” she said.
“I find myself going to bed on Thursdays and Fridays at five or six o’clock, and I literally cannot get up or open my eyes before ten or eleven the next day. Especially at the moment, it’s a busy period with Christmas and lots happening, the fatigue has taken its toll on my body and I cannot function in a big week anymore. ”
Ms Sneddon has relapse-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) which results in unexpected ‘attacks’ and periods of ‘recovery’ and remission afterwards. In MS cases, the body’s own immune system mistakenly attacks and damages the fatty material – called myelin – around the nerves. This results in a process called demyelination where patches of nerves become exposed and then scarred, which renders the nerves unable to communicate messages properly and at risk of further degeneration.
If you would like to support Ms Sneddon, her husband and their two young children Leni and Franklin, you can donate to the GoFundMe here: www.gofund.me/484f7c15.
