Happy Birthday Copaxone! Who Wants To Fundraise With Me for Young MSers Access to Treatment in Bucharest?

Anniversaries are supposed to be fun. You engage with things you like and that make you feel good and get somewhat emotional. Today, I’m engaging with something I got used to like, that makes me somewhat healthier than I already am and somewhat emotional.

If someone would have told me back in 2014 that I will have to do a daily injection just to increase by 30% the chances of a slower progression of relapsing-remissive multiple sclerosis (RRMS), I would have thought him to be insane.

But so is life, that it has the habit of giving you challenges. It kicks you with exactly the things that you fear the most. In my case, as in others who have been diagnosed with an incurable diease, is the fear of actually being sick and in time not being able to live as you like and enjoy all that life has to offer.

I’m not talking about the fear of needles here. Some while ago I thought that I was afraid of needles and hematomas, but I was in fact being anxious about the negative emotions and thoughts I had about needles and injections in general. Not complaining at all. The serum is uncomfortable sometimes, but it’s a very small price to pay facing MS.

I am incredibly grateful to have received this treatment. As all MSers, I too want to be able to control my health. I even began fearing that the treatment might be taken away because of lack of government funding or due to some new price regulation of the pharmaceutical companies.

Copaxone, or the idea that I need to have it, otherwise things will get really bad in time got me addicted. Today it’s been a year since the first injection. I am so used to it, that the thought of not being able to have it gives me serious anxiety.

Thinking about this scenario, I am humbled by the people who are not receiving any treatment and that are getting through daily life with MS much harder than I ever will.

My wish is to be able to help other RRMSers to get treatment too. To be able to make them feel less anxious, less angry and sometimes scared of losing access to their own lives. I want to work on providing them the best outcome possible for living with MS in Romania.

It’s an enourmous goal, but I truly believe in it and I know that if we do one step at a time, we will surely get there and even further.

Change operates slow. It’s a process. A marathon rather than a sprint. It needs training and as with all things in human life, it’s all better done when you are part of a team.

So this is a call for all people who who wish to be part of a change for the young MSers in Bucharest who need help, support and treatment.

Join SMart Choice Lifestyle in raising a team of volunteers that will work for a better life with MS in Romania.

First step, what ideas do you have to help fundraise for the Romanian MS Society? 

Send them via email: smartchoice.livingwithms@gmail.com untill May 2016, the MS Awareness Month and World MS Day. All the ideas will be summed up  and posted in an online meetup group, where we will do most of our planning. All the details of the group are comming this week!

Who’s with me?

(***LATER EDIT: Here's the meetup group - SMart MS Group Bucharest. All you need is a Facebook account, click "Join" and you're in!)

Sincerely,
Alexandra