20th Anniversary Gig
A 20th Anniversary Gig For Ballyfermot Rock College Class of 97 HNDM Music Management & Media Studies will take place in the Grand Social Dublin on Sunday 12th November. The legendary Pete Holidai will be performing. This gig is to raise funds for Stephen Garland, a former BCFE student, who is fundraising for a trip to Russia to stop his Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis (PPMS) with stem cell therapy.
See stop my ppms for more information and for booking.
Stephen’s Story
2 years ago I was diagnosed with MS. After further tests I was definitively diagnosed with PPMS – the least common form of the very common disease MS (10%). There is ‘no treatment or cure’ for PPMS just a slow but constant progression through in my case debilitating mobility, first a stick, mobility Scooter, (my current status) then wheelchair and then cognitive and other function decline.
As there is no treatment the only option is to wait and let this progression continue to take effect, wasn’t happy with that so got busy with becoming my own medical advocate and researched for any solutions out there and discovered that there is a quite aggressive chemo based treatment called HSCT and one of the clinics that has shown most beneficial effects is in Moscow in Russia.
I applied to see if I would be accepted and was BUT I thought that it wouldn’t happen until November 2018.
As luck would have it I got offered a cancellation for November 20 this year!!! I had been thinking that I would have a full 12 months to raise the €70k required to do the treatment all-in!
The nature of PPMS is it takes a long time to diagnose and I was living in Brazil throughout the 5 years it took to diagnose me which also meant that I am pretty much un-insurable in Ireland once diagnosed.
I am a comedy promoter and have worked with some of the biggest comics in Ireland and the world.
So I have been fundraising hard and my whole story is framed on stopmyppms.com
I acknowledge all my sponsors on my site and across my social media with every event.