A Miracle for Amanda

Behind this young family's wedding day smiles lie immense grief and pain. Amanda, diagnosed last year and married just three months ago, has relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis. Slowly, but surely, this cruel neurological disease is stealing her ability to be herself, to be a wife, to be a mother, to do the smallest of things most of us take for granted. She now has to use a wheelchair.

Every day, she is wracked with pain. The crippling headaches have seen her hospitalised, her speech is no longer clear and coherent, she is dizzy, her thinking is fuzzy and she can no longer walk a short distance without needing to rest. Amanda can't drive or work, take her two youngest children, aged two and three, to the park or the beach, or pick up her eldest daughter from the school bus when the rain pelts down. Her supportive husband, Chris, works 70-80 hours a week to keep his family afloat.

So Amanda - and her family - need a miracle; a Miracle in Moscow. Stem cell treatment for MS has produced astounding results. People destined for wheelchairs are now walking, running and cycling; their bodies and minds restored to normal. But it's expensive and not available in New Zealand.

Amanda has been accepted for treatment at National Pirogov Medical Surgical Center. All up, it will cost some $100,000. It's a big ask, but will you please give - just a little? - to give a young mum back her life and her family.