Angela Cleary : http://www.facebook.com/pages/Flowers4MS/154192398822
"Hello everyone, it is Keith again. I hope you all had an enjoyable holiday season. I wanted to wait until after Christmas before posting another update on how Angela is doing. As I mentioned earlier, Angela completed a second round of steroid infusions. Since then, we really have not seen any improvement in her condition. In fact, she seems to get a little worse each day. Overall weakness in her body has increased and we are primarily using a wheel chair to get her around. She is not able to really communicate to any significant degree. A few words here and there, but they are mostly mumbled. I find it uplifting that one thing she does say regularly is that she wants to get better. Her appetite has been OK, but it has been difficult to get her to drink enough, but I keep trying.
On a more positive note, we did get to go to my uncle’s house for Christmas today, and she seemed to enjoy herself. I have attached a photo of us from today.
As I have said many times before, your messages of encouragement and love are getting through to her, so I ask you to continue. I read them all to her and she does respond to them, sometimes with tears and sometimes with smiles.
She will be having another brain MRI this Tuesday and we will be meeting with the Hopkins doctors on Wednesday, so hopefully we will hear something positive…we could use it.
Anyway, thanks for all your support.
Keith & Angela"
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Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), also known as progressive multifocal leukoencephalitis, is a rare and usually fatal viral disease that is characterized by progressive damage (-pathy) or inflammation of the white matter (leuko-) of the brain (-encephalo-) at multiple locations (multifocal).
It occurs almost exclusively in people with severe immune deficiency, such as transplant patients on immunosuppressive medications, patients receiving certain kinds of chemotherapy, patients receiving natalizumab (Tysabri)[1] for multiple sclerosis, psoriasis patients on long-term efalizumab (Raptiva)[2] or AIDS patients.
There is no known cure. In some cases, the disease slows or stops if the patient's immune system improves; some AIDS patients with PML have been able to survive for several years, with the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART).
Die progressive multifokale Leukenzephalopathie (PML) ist eine Erkrankung des Zentralen Nervensystems (ZNS), die durch das zur Gattung der Polyomaviren gehörende JC-Virus verursacht wird.
- Eine kausale Behandlung der PML existiert NICHT.
- Die Prognose ist gegenwärtig schlecht.
Wenn es nicht gelingt die Funktion des Immunsystems adäquat (z.b. AIDS, MS+Tysabri) zu verbessern, führt die PML innerhalb von durchschnittlich 3 bis 20 Monaten zum Tod.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_multifokale_Leukenzephalopathie
Therapie
Angela Cleary : http://www.facebook.com/pages/CCSVI-in-Multiple-Sclerosis/110796282297#!/pages/Flowers4MS/154192398822