HAYDEN, Idaho — Hayden resident Robin Bates greets each day with a positive attitude and a grateful heart.
Keeping his chin up has been difficult lately. His secondary progressive multiple sclerosis has taken a toll on him and his wife of 23 years, Paula, who is his full-time caregiver.
Robin, 52, is facing the distressing possibility of having to move into an assisted living facility — away from the love of his life, away from his friends and family, away from the home he knows, our partners at the Coeur d'Alene Press report.
As his condition deteriorates, he is running out of time.
"It's getting so much worse so much quicker," Robin said Friday. "I just started to lose the ability to use my hands. I can’t even open my hands anymore."
Robin is in the process of qualifying for a hematopoietic stem cell transplant, a procedure that involves the intravenous infusion of stem cells that help reestablish blood cell production in people whose bone marrow or immune systems are not properly functioning.
It's not possible in the United States, and it's not cheap or covered by insurance.
Robin is working to raise $50,000 to cover the cost of the transplant, hospital stay, rehabilitation time, travel, lodging, food and other expenditures that will come with traveling outside of the country.
"I'm confident I'm going to get approved by Mexico, probably South Africa," said Robin, who is originally from South Africa. "Getting it done is going to be easy. It comes down to how soon I can raise the money and move forward."
Robin came to the U.S. when he was 27. He met Paula and the two were soon married.
Just three months into their marriage, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a disease that impacts the brain and spinal cord, which make up the central nervous system. It causes an array of symptoms, including numbness and tingling in the arms and legs, trouble walking, dizziness, vision problems and emotional and cognitive changes.
Robin has spent the last 13 years in a wheelchair. He's tried to participate in clinical trials, only to be told he is not able to because of his age and the advanced stage of his condition. He said he has tried countless conventional disease-modifying drugs to treat multiple sclerosis, as well as loads of alternative therapies, including diet and exercise programs.
But it keeps getting worse. Without some change of course, he fears life as he knows it will end.
"It’s all going to go away if I can’t stop this. I'm going to have to go to a home, my marriage will pretty much end,” Robin said. "It’s heartbreaking. It's frustrating. It’s scary, and that’s kind of where I am. If I had the money I would get the stem cell transplant tomorrow. They can’t guarantee that I'm going to get better, but they can guarantee I won’t get worse."
Email Robin at robinmbates@hotmail.com or visit https://bit.ly/3z9YYcz to donate.
The Coeur d'Alene Press is a KREM 2 news partner. For more from our partners, click here.
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