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Patient Testimonials

The people behind Project RESTORE — patients and their loved ones, physicians and researchers, board members and volunteers — believe that we are at the brink of a medical revolution in the diagnosis, treatment and ability to cure multiple sclerosis, transverse myelitis and other neuroimmunological disorders. As our name suggests, we believe we can REcover function from illness and acute attacks, STOp the progression of the disease or disability and REgenerate cells and myelin that insulates the nerve fibers.

This may sound like a lofty claim, but we believe that if you take just a few moments to view these videos, you will meet people who will change your mind.

You will hear Cody Unser, daughter of racecar driver Al Unser and college student with transverse myelitis, say that she sees hope in the legs of laboratory rats who were once paralyzed but are now walking. You will meet Cindy McLean, mother of Kara Anderson, a culinary student with transverse myelitis who will tell you that if her daughter had not traveled to Hopkins, she would be in a wheelchair right now. You will meet Steve Moritz, who with a very progressive form of multiple sclerosis says his dreams are to run a marathon and walk, not roll, his daughters down the aisle. And you will meet Alysse Einbender, a landscape designer and mother who after experiencing an arterial venous malformation, has had to manage her home and her business from a wheelchair. She says that no one in a partially paralyzed position ever stops wanting to get back up and walk and carry on their life in a vertical position.

While it may be challenging to believe at first, these words of success and hope are the very words that allow the people you will meet to get up in the morning, go about their day, and still have room for their dreams.

We are the only medical and research hospital poised to make dramatic advances in these disorders in the world. Philanthropy has, and will continue, to play a critical role in allowing us to develop new therapeutic strategies for neuroimmunological conditions.

Spend a few minutes watching the video clips of these astounding people. We believe that you will be left with a new perspective on these disorders — one that will urge you to become a partner in our efforts.