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Help keep Robin home

DEVIN WEEKS | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 2 years, 9 months AGO
by DEVIN WEEKS
Devin Weeks is a third-generation North Idaho resident. She holds an associate degree in journalism from North Idaho College and a bachelor's in communication arts from Lewis-Clark State College Coeur d'Alene. Devin embarked on her journalism career at the Coeur d'Alene Press in 2013. She worked weekends for several years, covering a wide variety of events and issues throughout Kootenai County. Devin now mainly covers K-12 education and the city of Post Falls. She enjoys delivering daily chuckles through the Ghastly Groaner and loves highlighting local people in the Fast Five segment that runs in CoeurVoice. Devin lives in Post Falls with her husband and their three eccentric and very needy cats. | July 18, 2022 1:09 AM

Hayden resident Robin Bates greets each day with a positive attitude and a grateful heart.

Keeping his chin up has been difficult lately. His secondary progressive multiple sclerosis has taken a toll on him and his wife of 23 years, Paula, who is his full-time caregiver.

Robin, 52, is facing the distressing possibility of having to move into an assisted living facility — away from the love of his life, away from his friends and family, away from the home he knows.

As his condition deteriorates, he is running out of time.

"It's getting so much worse so much quicker," Robin said Friday. "I just started to lose the ability to use my hands. I can’t even open my hands anymore."

Robin is in the process of qualifying for a hematopoietic stem cell transplant, a procedure that involves the intravenous infusion of stem cells that help reestablish blood cell production in people whose bone marrow or immune systems are not properly functioning.

It's not possible in the United States, and it's not cheap or covered by insurance.

Robin is working to raise $50,000 to cover the cost of the transplant, hospital stay, rehabilitation time, travel, lodging, food and other expenditures that will come with traveling outside of the country.

"I'm confident I'm going to get approved by Mexico, probably South Africa," said Robin, who is originally from South Africa. "Getting it done is going to be easy. It comes down to how soon I can raise the money and move forward."

Robin came to the U.S. when he was 27. He met Paula and the two were soon married.

Just three months into their marriage, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a disease that impacts the brain and spinal cord, which make up the central nervous system. It causes an array of symptoms, including numbness and tingling in the arms and legs, trouble walking, dizziness, vision problems and emotional and cognitive changes.

Robin has spent the last 13 years in a wheelchair. He's tried to participate in clinical trials, only to be told he is not able to because of his age and the advanced stage of his condition. He said he has tried countless conventional disease-modifying drugs to treat multiple sclerosis, as well as loads of alternative therapies, including diet and exercise programs.

But it keeps getting worse. Without some change of course, he fears life as he knows it will end.

"It’s all going to go away if I can’t stop this. I'm going to have to go to a home, my marriage will pretty much end,” Robin said. "It’s heartbreaking. It's frustrating. It’s scary, and that’s kind of where I am. If I had the money I would get the stem cell transplant tomorrow. They can’t guarantee that I'm going to get better, but they can guarantee I won’t get worse."

Email Robin at robinmbates@hotmail.com or visit https://bit.ly/3z9YYcz to donate.

photo

TESS FREEMAN/Press File

Paula Bates helps her husband Robin Bates onto a whole body vibration machine in their Hayden home in 2014. Robin, who has multiple sclerosis, hopes to have a stem cell transplant to avoid being placed in an assisted living facility. The procedure and associated costs will be at least $50,000.

MORE FRONT-PAGE-SLIDER STORIES

Working on a second chance at life
Coeur d'Alene Press | Updated 2 years, 7 months ago
Goals in sight for Hayden man with MS
Coeur d'Alene Press | Updated 2 years, 1 month ago
Robin Bates benefit April 14 at Seasons
Coeur d'Alene Press | Updated 2 years, 1 month ago

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