North Ryde mum seeks Russian treatment for MS diagnosis

Hope and her children kept Khali Whatley strong in the six years since she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, but now she is looking to Russia to help stop the degenerative disease.

(L-R) 9 year old Charlotte her mum Khali and 11 year old brother Hunter Whatley, Ms Whatley has multiple sclerosisand is trying to get to Russia for an experimental drug. Picture: AAP Image/Angelo Velardo

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When Khali Whatley was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis she did not cry.

The North Ryde mother of two had prepared herself for the worst so when her doctor told her of her degenerative condition in 2013 she was ready to face the disease and the treatments.

“I don’t like to get caught up in the ‘why me’ sentiments,” Ms Whatley, 39, said.

“I was prepared for the worst and when it happened I thought, ‘there’s no use in crying about it’.”

Over the next seven years Ms Whatley exhausted three different medications to treat and stabilise her MS, each one failing to help.

She is now setting her hopes on an experimental treatment from Russia known as haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT).

“I heard about the Russian treatment in 2013 and I had it in the back of my mind as a last resort,” she said.

The treatment regrows the immune system of the MS patient.

HSCT is an intense chemotherapy treatment which aims to stop the damage the disease causes by wiping out and then regrowing the immune system using the patients stem cells.

But the stem cell transplant costs about $100,000.

Ms Whately has set up a GoFundMe page with a goal of $60,000 to get her to Russia and partially pay for the treatment.

Microscope enlargement of Mesenchymal stem cells, which are capable of forming other organ cell types, including cancerous cells.

When she returns from Russia, Ms Whatley dreams about jumping fully into motherhood again.

“The thing I daydream about is being the mum that I want to be again,” she said

“My children are the most wonderful thing that I have ever experienced and not being able to be active in their lives has been hard.”

To donate visit: gofundme.com/a-cure-for-khali-a-mothers-mission-to-beat-ms

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