LATEST LIFE NEWS!!
WORLD MS DAY 2023
Back in Barcelona and have reconnected with the amazing MS Research institution, CEMCAT where I was first diagnosed by the eminent Prof Xavi Montalban. They have created an amazing programme of neuro-rehabilitation which has me 3 days a week undergoing highly specialized physiotherapy, Pscyhotherapy Occupational Therapy and more! I also have by now received the results from my mammoth 2 hour MRI which took place between 1 and 5AM on Paddy's Night this year! The amazing news is that I have no new lesions or activity and my PPMS is stable!!! Hurrah out of gratitude I have made a small clip see right!! 
Had an argument with this dude on the way out of Trinity after the graduation really didn't have much to say for himself to be honest!!
Real fun day that this 50 yr old largely burnt out Rock and Roll and entertainment promoter really didn't expect to find himself doing but it was quite a challenge so feeling proud 5 years after Stopping the Unstoppable disease. Now will try to do something with this Irish Canna Clinic project so y'all need to watch this space |
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On International MS Day 2019, May the 30th they had a most inspiring day of conferencing for which I dusted off my show the Post-Disposed for a very generous audience of the centres own patrons, so nearly all MS sufferers themselves, a first for me. I am delighted to say that the show in a huge bright Hotel Ballroom at 3pm in the afternoon was well received!
It also gave a really good solid morale boost as I head for the Edinburgh Fringe for one final run to close what is now essentially a trilogy since the Pre-Disposed in 2017!!
Thank you to everyone who came along and please continue to leave your feedback on the Review Page as I will once again be fighting to get people into my Edinburgh Show!
Leave a Review and check out the rest here which has now followed the show across 6 countries
It also gave a really good solid morale boost as I head for the Edinburgh Fringe for one final run to close what is now essentially a trilogy since the Pre-Disposed in 2017!!
Thank you to everyone who came along and please continue to leave your feedback on the Review Page as I will once again be fighting to get people into my Edinburgh Show!
Leave a Review and check out the rest here which has now followed the show across 6 countries
Lately I have hooked up with the North West Therapy Centre an amazing little largely independently funded centre, they have some HSE support but have to supplement with massive efforts from their own fundraising so they can offer therapies, treatments and supports to the really far too many MS sufferers that have really clustered in this region of Ireland.
Living in Longford I am technically outside the catchment area of the centre but I am told they will seek to help as many people as they can and I am so, so grateful to count myself amongst one of their patients. The centre is run by the most incredible team of selfless generous individuals who offer Hyperbaric Oxygen, Physiotherapy, Hydro therapy and respite services all 'Under Bdenbulben's Head' in one of the most atmospheric inspiring towns in Ireland, in the heart of Yeats Country on the Wild Atlantic Way!! 
Well we have been busy of late... after finishing 2 modules of a Postgrad in UCD Innovation Academy where I have settled on creating a project of the Irish Medical Cannabis Clinic a.k.a the Irish Canna Clinic which has been progressing nicely and now is in the final stages of a full site build but for now we are just using the social media
The essence of the talks is to give a platform to some of the brave criminalised patients who suffer from a range of conditions that have all being clinically proven to be massively beneficially treated with Medical Cannabis. The talks are up and running and receiving brilliant feedback... 
We were pretty settled into a groove at the beginning of 2021 but like everybody the COVID pandemic had different ideas about how my future had become waaayyy to predictable...
It first interrupted my Creative Writing for Publication Course (Highly recommended!) aimed at finally getting this StopmyPPMS story into a printed form. Face to face Classes were abandoned but I'm delighted to say that with the help of my great tutors in Maynooth University we were able to finish. But the big calamity was simultaneously unfolding as my fledgling events company www.ferdianevents.com that I developed through 2018/and '19 on the very welcome BTWEA as I sought to find a new professional moment was completely destroyed. The company was really finding its feet and I headed to Barcelona on March 10 to sign a deal with 2 Tourism companies to provide Consultancy and programming for a brand new club they were opening on Barcelona's Ramblas targeting the Summer Tourist trade. By Friday the 13th!!! ALL our businesses (Events and Tourism) were essentially wiped out completely for 2020. On Saturday 14th Barcelona went into a total lockdown that lasted until my first opportunity to return to Ireland on July 7th. Just another business disaster anecdote amongst the millions of the current global catastrophe. So I am delighted to have found some space and today had my first class on a great new course Postgraduate Certificate in Creativity, Innovation & Entrepreneurship with Springboard. I am so grateful to the Irish Welfare system that has enabled me to keep up-skilling in a bid to find a role that fits my current level of disability. And I am very excited about this new course that I hope might redirect me to the next chapter!! Ferdian Events is still in place whenever we get our events back but I'm very excited to see what this new course might turn up! |
The 'Post-disposed' maiden tour
Have finally got a chance to reflect on an incredible year and at the heart of it mid recovery I managed to take my show The Post-Disposed to through 7 cities in 6 different countries...
It was made as a challenge to really put my recovery to the test and by October we had certainly done that...
In this page are my reflections on the trip and the acknowledgements and thanks due to the so many very cool people that helped to make it all happen...
I type on Xmas Eve 2018 reflecting on the year that was and looking forward to what will be an even more exciting 2019... with an Irish Tour and maybe even some global dates!!!
Have finally got a chance to reflect on an incredible year and at the heart of it mid recovery I managed to take my show The Post-Disposed to through 7 cities in 6 different countries...
It was made as a challenge to really put my recovery to the test and by October we had certainly done that...
In this page are my reflections on the trip and the acknowledgements and thanks due to the so many very cool people that helped to make it all happen...
I type on Xmas Eve 2018 reflecting on the year that was and looking forward to what will be an even more exciting 2019... with an Irish Tour and maybe even some global dates!!!
Click here for full details of what went down in Europe!
If you did make it to one of the shows and still remember it... it is still possible to leave a review!
CLICK HERE TO READ OR LEAVE A REVIEW
PRESS:
'Post-Disposed travels 18 months from Longford, to Spain to Brazil to Scotland to Broadsheet to Russia and back to Longford again; I was Post-Exam Hall exhausted yet didn’t stop smiling, seriously, for 120 minutes. It was the easiest standing ovation I ever ended up in.' - The Broadsheet.ie
Full review here https://www.broadsheet.ie/author/vanessa-foran/
'The show was Beautiful, Emotional Empowering Lonely and Funny'. - Athlone Community Radio
If you did make it to one of the shows and still remember it... it is still possible to leave a review!
CLICK HERE TO READ OR LEAVE A REVIEW
PRESS:
'Post-Disposed travels 18 months from Longford, to Spain to Brazil to Scotland to Broadsheet to Russia and back to Longford again; I was Post-Exam Hall exhausted yet didn’t stop smiling, seriously, for 120 minutes. It was the easiest standing ovation I ever ended up in.' - The Broadsheet.ie
Full review here https://www.broadsheet.ie/author/vanessa-foran/
'The show was Beautiful, Emotional Empowering Lonely and Funny'. - Athlone Community Radio
The tale is probably best told in a series of Youtube Clips that framed the last part of the #RoadtoRussia story...
while you're there subscribe to the channel as we will be adding to it in time, and there may be more hats...
And Finally...
Patient and Carer of the Year 2017
Just a final word of deepest thanks from Valeska and myself...
this was the culmination of at least a 5 year trip through the search for a diagnosis to receiving the news I had the infamous 'No Treatment, No Cure' form of MS PPMS, to the discovery (oddly!) that there was!! a possibility to halt the disease with the great Dr Fedorenko in Moscow, to a 2 year waiting list and eventually the cancellation and appointment for November 16 2017 to go to Russia for HSCT (Stem cell therapy) and a transplant on December 5 that would ultimately STOP MY poxy PPMS!!!
To everyone who contributed whether €5 or €1000, know that I am now CERTAIN that y'all helped keep me out of a wheelchair in the short term but also created the platform for me to hopefully repair some of the damage done!
And most of all you have helped put some certainty back in our lives...
this was the culmination of at least a 5 year trip through the search for a diagnosis to receiving the news I had the infamous 'No Treatment, No Cure' form of MS PPMS, to the discovery (oddly!) that there was!! a possibility to halt the disease with the great Dr Fedorenko in Moscow, to a 2 year waiting list and eventually the cancellation and appointment for November 16 2017 to go to Russia for HSCT (Stem cell therapy) and a transplant on December 5 that would ultimately STOP MY poxy PPMS!!!
To everyone who contributed whether €5 or €1000, know that I am now CERTAIN that y'all helped keep me out of a wheelchair in the short term but also created the platform for me to hopefully repair some of the damage done!
And most of all you have helped put some certainty back in our lives...
