“I’d like to maybe do the dishes every once in a while,” says Dryden resident and downtown fixture Al Neill. “Every man gets yelled at for not doing the dishes.”

Neill is hopeful a new medical procedure will help him better cope with the effects of Multiple Sclerosis (MS).  Neill plans to travel to Costa Rica for ‘liberation treatment’ — a procedure resembling an angioplasty to open blocked jugular and azygous veins, improving circulation from the brain to the heart. The surgery has yet to be approved in Canada.

A group of friends have converged to help Al, partner Jackie Newstead and son Keely raise funds for the $20,000 procedure. A benefit social will take place Saturday, April 9 at the Dryden Fairgrounds Agricultural Centre. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. The evening will include an auction table, a live auction and a dance.

Neill is among a growing number of MS patients seeking treatment in foreign operating rooms — frustrated with the Canadian medical community’s reluctance to examine what they believe to be mounting evidence of the benefits of liberation treatment for MS sufferers. Italian doctor Paolo Zamboni’s chronic cerebro-spinal venous insufficiency (CCSVI) syndrome and liberation therapy has proven very contentious among medical practitioners who have long adhered to drug therapy in their approach to treating the auto-immune disease.

But Neill says his current treatment  — an expensive drug regimen — is ineffective.“I’ve done everything the doctors have asked — taken all the drugs they told me would help me and blah, blah, blah,” he said. “Now I’m at the end. I can’t take anymore drugs and hopefully I won’t have to.”

At 47 years old, Neill has difficulty walking more than a few steps and uses a scooter to get around. In addition to numbness in his hands and feet he also experiences ‘brain fog’, cognitive effects that can hamper his short-term memory and ability to think or speak clearly.

Neill hopes the procedure could allow him to contribute more to his family.  “I’d like to be able to wash the floor here in the store for her so she doesn’t have to come down here and do it,” he says.

Jackie Newstead says that if the treatment can alleviate just one of Al’s crippling symptoms, then it would be a blessing for the family.“They’re not saying it’s a cure,” says Jackie Newstead. “What they are saying is that some people who have MS have this condition (CCSVI) as well. If you can treat that then it alleviates some of their symptoms. Some of the people are leaving in wheelchairs and coming back walking.”

One such case is Neill’s friend and fellow MS sufferer Dave Harasym of Pickle Lake. Having undergone the procedure himself at the same Costa Rican facility Neill plans to undergo the surgery at, Harasym has done much to soothe the family’s uncertainty over quality of care and post-operative treatment. Harasym says the 35-minute procedure has returned his quality of life.

“Before I left, people couldn’t understand me — my speech was so slurred,” said Harasym. “That’s basically gone. I noticed it instantly as I came out of the procedure. The first thing you notice is your hands and feet are warm, not ice-cold and your head is clear.”

Now out of his wheelchair, Harasym says he’s getting stronger every day as his muscles get used to bearing weight.“My legs work, my hands work, I can feel hot and cold again,” he says. “The only thing that hasn’t come back is my sense of balance, I still use a walker, though mostly to keep me from falling over to one side.”

Harasym says he used to spend $1,700 per month in drug treatments that had little to no effect on his symptoms  “When I told my neurologist I was getting worse and worse he said, ‘we’ll increase your meds and get you a wheelchair’. How’s that for support?” said Harasym. “He basically said goodbye to me once I told him I was going to get this done. I was very, very disappointed.” Harasym’s experience with his doctor in Canada is increasingly common.

With some doctors reluctant to offer post-operative care on a surgery not offered, nor performed in Canada, some MS patients who have undergone liberation treatment have had difficulty accessing care upon their return.  The provinces of Alberta and Ontario have recently taken steps to address aftercare needs for patients who return from liberation treatment outside of Canada as more and more are being refused post-operative care.

Early this month CTV reported that an expert panel in Ontario was developing best practices guidelines to advise the government on how to treat MS patients who have had the procedure as well as provide information for patients before they go and information they should bring back with them.  The panel is expected to report back in October.

Donations to ‘Al’s Liberation’ can be made at the Dryden branch of The Bank Of Montreal, e-mail money transfers can go to alsliberation@hotmail.com.For more information contact members of the Benefit Committee: Mary Helie at 223-5139, Debbie Campbell at 937-2084, or Lorrie Lough at 223-7678.

By Chris Marchan