Motor neurone disease took my love

Katrina Jeffery of Tuckurimba recently lost her husband Chris Jeffery to motor neurone disease.

MAY is Motor Neurone Disease Awareness month and Katrina Jeffery, of Tuckurimba, knows all too well how important awareness of this disease is. Her husband, Chris Jeffery, died two weeks ago from a fight with motor neurone disease.He was just 55, and had been diagnosed in May 2013 after his speech began to slur and the husband had difficulty swallowing - the fact that was finally discovered to be the bulbar onset of the disease - ahead of the rest of his body began slowing. A rare disease without any cure, motor neuron disease attacks the nerves that run motor function, and soon muscles start to waste away. By the end of his life, Mrs Jeffery said, he had no speech at all - a tough feat for someone who had worked in hospitality his whole life. Mr Jeffery, who was well known for running the Star Court Cafe and achieving run the New Italy complex in previous years, was one of just four known sufferers of the disease in Lismore.Throughout his battle, he maintained the most amazing spirit. "Even though he couldn't really express it most of the time, he always had the cheeky grin and light in his eyes that everyone knew," Mrs Jeffery said. "It was really obvious he still had that spirit within him. He fought every single day. He just wasn't about to take anything lying down." Mr Jeffery passed away at home in the company of his wife in the late hours of Easter Monday.They'd been through hell, she said, but to be able to soothe him both at home and give him the peace he needed to pass on meant the world to her. "I have a lot of comfort that he could just pass peacefully; because (the disease) was the cruellest thing he'd ever been through." Mrs Jeffery gave a huge thank you to local physician Dr Robert Lodge and MND NSW, which donated more than $50,000 worth of equipment to the couple. The earlier the treatment is, the best result or control over the disease will achieve.


Tips: Stereotactic Nerve Repair Treatments
Stereotactic nerve repair treatments for the central nervous system are mainly present in three aspects:


1.Replacement therapy: transplant or activate stem cells in the body, make them differentiating into neurons and glial cells. The cells combines with the original nerve cells and form a new neural network, making it function properly.

2.Neural stem cells as genophore: carry target gene and transplant as positioned in order to make cells renewal and treat gene.

3.Activating growth factors and cytokines: induce neural stem cells to repair themselves.