This is the only Christmas card I’ll get this year… and I could not be happier

A disabled mum won’t get any Christmas cards this year but Samantha McKay says she couldn’t be happier.

Instead, family and friends are donating the cost of their greetings cards to help her get well.

The mum of two is trying to raise £50,000 to fly to Mexico for the stem cell treatment which helped the BBC’s Caroline Wyatt who, like Samantha, is stricken with multiple sclerosis (MS).

Samantha, 41, from Tollcross, Glasgow, said: “I’ve been told there’s nothing more doctors can do for me as I have a particularly aggressive form of MS and the prognosis is not good.

“I read about a development in stem cell research which has been found to help some patients, but it is only readily available in Mexico.

“I thought, ‘What have I got to lose?’”

Samantha began suffering pain and tiredness, eyesight problems and numbness several years ago.

She was diagnosed as having MS in 2009, and now suffers paralysis down her left side and is confined to her house much of the time.

Scientists around the world have been battling to find a way of treating the condition, and recent stem cell treatments have been promising.

The treatment involves chemotherapy to destroy a patient’s faulty immune system then building it back up again using stem cells which have the ability to turn into immune cells.

Only a small number of patients have been involved in tests in the UK, and private treatment here can cost up to £100,000.

But the Clinica Ruiz in Puebla, Mexico has reported success in up to 50% of patients, and for half the cost of a private procedure in the UK.

War correspondent Caroline Wyatt, 50, was found to be unsuitable for the UK trials, so she got a bank loan and went to Mexico in January for help.

She says symptoms such as pain and “brain fog” have been helped by the treatment, and she is “feeling better than I have in a long time”.

Samantha, who has two children Christopher, 20, and Chelsea, 16, is delighted the treatment helped Caroline, but understands it may not help her.

She said: “I know up to a fifth don’t get any relief from the treatment, but up to half say they feel a lot better.

“I’m under no illusion that this is a miracle cure. If I’m lucky, it might halt the progression of my illness. I’m willing to take that chance.”

Samantha has started a Go Fund Me page, and has been “bowled over” by the support she has received.

She said: “I was in the hairdressers the other day and a pensioner handed me £5. I was so touched.

“Friends and family are raising money with events, it’s heartening how kind people are.”

Samantha says she desperately misses her old life.

She said: “I used to work in a local chemist shop dispensing prescriptions. I knew everybody and loved my job.

“But MS robbed me of that and it’s robbed me of being the mum I wanted to be for my kids.”