An animator who successfully crowdfunded for a £45,000 ‘miracle cure’ for his multiple sclerosis affliction is jumping out of a plane to raise money for a fellow sufferer who supported him through his treatment.
Alex Green, 37, travelled to Russia last April to undergo ground-breaking treatment for MS, having lived with the disease for nine years.
Since then he has felt rejuvenated, and is well on the road to recovery, taking on two gym sessions a week to recover his strength, and his dreams of becoming a father now feel more realistic again, he said.
From February 2016: Leatherhead man with multiple sclerosis hopes £45,000 crowdfunding campaign helps him become a father
“I felt I was just one relapse away from a wheelchair,” he said.
“It’s an incredibly cruel disease.”
Multiple sclerosis is a disease in which the immune system damages the myelin covering of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord.
In Alex’s case it limited his mobility and impaired his senses, preventing him from playing football and doing other outdoor activities, made work exhausting, and put strains on his relationship with wife Jen by preventing the couple from starting a family.
He can now walk long distances again, feels close to being able to run and jog again, and feels confident he and wife Jen (pictured together below) will be able to start a family one day.
“MS really held me back in so many ways,” he said.
“The last ten years I’ve been existing, but not living.
“I’d work five days, but at the end of those five days I was just so tired all I could do was rest just so I could work another five days.
“It was just easy being at home all the time.”
After learning of a cure offered in Russia, Mexico and India – but not currently in the UK – that involved alternate bouts of aggressive chemotherapy and injections of his own stem cells to repair his damaged nerves, Alex started fundraising for treatement.
Having reached his £45,000 target, Alex travelled to Russia, and spent most of last April undergoing the treatment.
Within days, he was able to stand himself up when he got out of bed in the morning, and within a week his fatigue had lifted, and he felt sensations he had not felt in years.
Alex has now regained feeling throughout his body, increased his strength and mobility, and feels less tired.
“It felt like a massive weight on my shoulders. Very quickly, that was lifted,” he explained.
“I don’t like to use the word, but it was almost miraculous. These were the stories you only hear about happening to other people, but it was happening to me.”
Alex added: “Only now do I realise how bad MS made me feel.
“Just by feeling normal every day, I feel so much better.”
Alex received messages of support during his treatment from, among others, Jill Marriner, a Bristol computer admin, who has had the disease for 18 years.
He now wants to help raise money to support her by doing a sponsored skydive over Swindon – roughly halfway between his home in Leatherhead, and hers in Bristol – on June 3.
“Jill followed my story while I was out there and sent me messages of support,” Alex said.
“With the support she gave me I thought I’d do this for her – and with the physical stresses this would have put on my body in the past, what a fantastic way to show just how effective this treatment is.”
To donate money towards Jill’s £50,000 target, visit https://www.gofundme.com/RebootMe?utm_medium=wdgt
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