WATCH: Kaiden Taylor’s king of the swingers – for mum Jade Taylor who has an aggressive and rare form of crippling MS
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A 10-year-old Inverness boy took the plunge and bravely faced the prospect of a 40m (132ft) swing off a bridge.
Kaiden Taylor completed the challenge to help his mother’s battle against an aggressive and rare form of crippling MS.
His mum Jade Taylor, a 38-year-old self-employed beautician, received the devastating diagnosis in February 2021 and is hoping to travel to Mexico in the spring for ground-breaking stem cell treatment.
The youngster took part in a sponsored bridge swing near Pitlochry last Saturday to help raise some of the £56,000 needed for the trip – so far he has raised £1665 and is expecting another £400.
Jade said: “Kaiden had a wonderful day at his Highland swing.
“He was nervous to begin with however the excitement soon built when he started speaking about what he was doing it for.
“He was the first to be swung across the river under a 132ft bridge and he was screaming with joy.
“At the time, Kaiden said he would never do it again, however he is very keen to now do another fundraising event with something crazy like this.”
They need to raise the cash by February, when medical preparations begin, and April 3 is pencilled in for the procedure to be carried out.
It has since been discovered that Jade has progressive-relapsing multiple sclerosis (PRMS), the rarest form of the disease.
Jade’s big hope is flying to Mexico for haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT ), an intense chemotherapy treatment for MS. It aims to stop the damage MS causes by wiping out and then regrowing the immune system, using the patient’s stem cells.
Jade said that receiving the Covid injections and some hospital medication seemed to make the MS flare worse, but when she got Covid in March this year, her symptoms were slight.
Currently HSCT is only available in England on the NHS, and in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland patients have yet to be accepted. The non-profit Scottish HSCT Network is working to change this situation in Scotland.
• So far their fundraising page has raised more than £15,000 and to make a donation visit Go Fund Me.
