Friends' sky dive for 'MS warrior' Jade in bid to fund life-changing treatment
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
A FORMER Sutherland school pupil now living in Inverness, is fundraising to pay for life-changing treatment overseas following a devastating health diagnosis.
Jade Taylor, (38) who lived at Dalreavoch, and attended Rogart Primary School and Golspie High School, is struggling with progressive relapsing multiple sclerosis and now needs walking aids and a mobility scooter.
She is hoping to raise £56,000 to enable her to travel to a clinic in Mexico for Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant (HSCT), a treatment she cannot access on the NHS.
The mother-of-two has already had to postpone her trip because of lack of funds – she has committed all her savings to the treatment – and has rebooked a place in the clinic for October in the hope she will be able to pay for it by then.
Friends are also rallying round with a fundraising skydive planned.
Jade said: “Unfortunately due to the current financial situation, fundraising is hard and I have had to reschedule the treatment until hopefully later this year.”
After leaving Golspie High School, Jade trained as a beautician in Glasgow before returning to the Highlands. She lived in Tain for around 14 years where she established her beauty business, Taylor Made Jade.
She is still working part-time out of her home in Culloden, Inverness, where she moved some years ago, as well as looking after her children, aged 10 and seven.
“I refuse to give up and am working around 10 hours a week – it keeps me moving,” she said.
Jade describes her diagnosis, which was made in February 2021, as a “sledgehammer” blow. She had been experiencing a “loss of strength”, along with problems with her legs and balance.
“Since being diagnosed I have lost my mobility and struggle to walk more than 15-20 metres without any aid,” she said. “Both feet have dropped, and I have tingling, pins and needles and pain in both legs.
“In addition I suffer from extreme fatigue, brain fog and speech issues, and my back is in pain and often struggles to hold me up.”
Jade has not tolerated well the treatments she has been put on, but says she has been told she does not qualify for HSCT on the NHS.
An intense chemotherapy treatment, HSCT aims to stop the damage MS causes by wiping out and then regrowing patients’ immune systems, using their own stem cells.
The MS Society says on its website that studies into HSCT have found that it “is most effective for people who have highly active relapsing MS”.
The required month’s stay in Mexico will cost Jade an estimated £56,000 but she still has a long way to go with less than half of that sum raised - her current total stands at £20,929. Donations can be made on her Gofundme page: https://gofund.me/86b81807
Jade is actively fundraising herself and held an extremely successful afternoon tea party at the Bunchrew House Hotel, where her friend Andrew McKelvie is the head chef.
Mr McKelvie is now helping to organise a group skydive to help Jade meet her target figure.
He said: “After talking to people at work and spreading Jade’s story, we were overwhelmed with support and help. Before we knew it, 12 people were willing to face their fears and help raise as much money as possible.”
The group has already raised £5,410 towards their £8,000 goal. For more information and to donate, visit: https://gofundme/118a96b3
After receiving her diagnosis, Jade did not know where to turn to for support and information.
She has since set up Highland MS Warriors, an online private Facebook group which gives MS patients in the north a forum on which to relate their own experiences of the illness and to find information. The group now has 64 members.
Jade hopes the Highland MS Warriors will eventually become a vehicle for fundraising to establish a pot of money which would provide individuals with MS with help towards the costs of treatment not provided by the health service.
