Fetal-cell surgery 'no magic cure'

Willie Terpstra at home in Rotorua after surgery. Picture / Alan Gibson

The revolutionary fetal-cell surgery that Willie Terpstra underwent in China to stem the advancement of her motor neurone disease has not been a magic cure.

But there were no regrets, her husband Rein said yesterday.

"You hope for a miracle, but it isn't. It's just a slightly better quality of life - and a bit longer," he said.

"Still, we are very happy we did it. Otherwise in the back of your mind you would keep wondering, if you hadn't tried."

Nearly three months after the controversial operation in Beijing, Mr Terpstra says his wife, who cannot speak, is "not brilliant, but she's hanging in there".

The 64-year-old from Rotorua had her ups and downs but was still eating and drinking "a bit", he said.

"She is definitely better than before the treatment. Some days she is really well."

He said the severe cramps in her arms and legs that plagued Mrs Terpstra after she was diagnosed with the terminal muscle-wasting disease two years ago now struck only "once in a while".

The cruel headaches had also gone.

"She sometimes has a little headache but nothing like she used to have. There are a lot of plus points, but she still can't talk."

Mrs Terpstra has acupuncture and spiritual healing twice a week, hopefully to stimulate her ravaged muscles and help keep depression at bay.

She also has a regular massage at Rotorua's Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

"Mentally sometimes she gets down so at least something is being done," said Mr Terpstra.

"It's not easy for the patient and it's not easy for those around her, either. We have to keep her spirits up."

The couple have had many emails and calls from other neurological disease sufferers round the globe - yesterday it was a man from Israel - interested in the Chinese fetal-cell surgery, which is banned elsewhere in the world.

Mrs Terpstra, believed to be the first New Zealander to undergo the treatment, had two million cells taken from the noses of aborted fetuses injected into her brain on March 23 under local anaesthetic.

The olfactory nerve carries smell sensations to the brain and is the only part of the central nervous system known to regenerate continuously throughout adult life.

The Terpstras' advice: "Everybody has to make up their own minds. Don't get your hopes up too high."