Lena Close doesn't dream big. The 34-year-old would like to have some fun with her kids, or go to a movie with her husband. Heck, some days she'd settle for just being able to get into her own laundry room.

Multiple sclerosis is making her world smaller, one nerve ending at a time.

Since January, when the Langley mother of three had a flare-up and had to spend a month in the hospital and another month in therapy, she's been confined to a wheelchair.

It's not how Lena and her husband Rob, 36, imagined their lives.

They had a young family and had laid down roots in Langley. Lena had grown up here and Rob had been here since childhood. She was a financial services advisor at a large insurance company.

Then came the diagnosis a decade ago.

Rob now works at a recycling depot and tries to run a computer repair business from their Langley City basement suite, needing the flexible work hours to care for Lena and the kids. Each summer, she suffers through the heat.

"It's to the point where I have to quit my jobs every summer," he explained.

After the birth of her second child, Lena noticed her leg was numb and it spread to her lower half.

In recent years, she stopped going on outings with the family because of the difficulty of getting around, the extreme fatigue, difficulty swallowing, and the need for frequent bathroom trips.

"I've said, it's not just us in this marriage," Lena commented. "We have MS in this marriage, there's three of us."

It's a disease little understood and one that affects each patient differently.

The diagnosis came 10 years ago but it's been within the last five years that MS has really taken its toll.

Doctors are stumped why Lena, with clean MRI tests and no family history of the disease, would be so incapacitated.

"I have completely numb hands and feet," she said.

MS affects every part of her body, including causing severe fatigue, eye problems, breathing problems, and mental fog.

Lena dreads the warm summer weather most people enjoy because heat is a trigger.

Naturally, MS has made Lena and her loved ones experts on the disease. She's learned what works for her - a strict diet and supplements, and no MS medications, which she said make her worse.

But the steps only help with the symptoms. She's looking for a way to stop the disease's progression and the internal damage the disease causes.

That's why she is heading to Costa Rica in September for liberation therapy, a procedure considered experimental in Canada. She and Rob are spending several days there while she has a small surgical balloon threaded up through her abdomen and into her carotid artery in the neck. The balloons will be inflated to stretch the blood vessels and increase flow to the rest of the body.

It's a procedure many Canadian patients are travelling abroad to obtain. The Close family is scrambling to raise $15,000 to cover the travel and medical costs, raising about $2,800 so far. They need to reach out because the family finances are so stretched already.

The medical establishment has labelled MS as an autoimmune disease and left its treatment to neurologists but she said the therapy that pushes open blood vessels in the neck shows there's more to MS.

"Neurologists took over the disease and said 'it's a nerve thing,'" she commented.

In hindsight, she's seeing how there is a vascular component to her MS.

Flare-ups are tied to her monthly menstrual cycle and she found out estrogen helps make blood vessels more elastic. As well, heat makes blood vessels constrict, so she spends her life surrounded by fans because getting warm causes discomfort.

Lena said a few years ago, stem cells were touted as the new cure and there have been other therapies, like bee stings, that have been hailed but she is confident in the blood vessel treatment because she's seen it help so many fellow MS patients.

The family will be filming Lena before and after surgery and plan to post the footage online.

Lena noted that it costs about $25,000 annually for MS drugs but the government won't pay the estimated $1,500 that this surgery would cost if done in this country.

And she's realistic about the outcome, knowing about half of the patients have their blood vessels re-constrict but said it's still more economical to have to redo a surgery than just go with the costly drugs.

"My hope is it stops the progression, that's the biggest thing," Lena said.

LIBERATION

Lena Close and her family are trying to raise money to cover the costs of an MS treatment not available in Canada. The Closes are trying anything they can think of to bring in money for Lena's treatment.

They have set up the website liberatelena.weebly.com which accepts donations through Paypal. There is also information on the site about a bank account for donations.

The Brookswood family has also started a bottle drive and is looking for contributions. People can drop them off at the Langley Bottle Depot on Industrial Avenue. Tell the staff they are for the Lena Close Fund.

The website also has ticket information for the upcoming pub night at the Fox and Fiddle. Tickets are $25 and the event, which will feature prizes, is Sept. 11. Up for grabs are a TV, Canucks tickets, gift baskets and more.

On Sept. 12, they are having a bowlathon at the Alder Lanes in Aldergrove.

Rob Close, Lena's husband, said they are accepting donations from businesses of prizes for these events.

The family can be reached at liberate.lena@gmail.com or through the website.