Meet Jaclyn Woznicki, local artist, owner of Tahoe City’s beloved Trunk Show, and MS Warrior!
Jaclyn has recently been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), but before we go there, let’s talk about Jaclyn the way we know her – artist, business owner, and beloved Tahoe local – all amazing elements of Jaclyn that will fuel her fight!
Jaclyn’s Shop:
Trunk Show in Tahoe City features the works of artists from California & Nevada, most of those artists being from Lake Tahoe & Truckee. Jaclyn has a personal relationship with each one of these artists as well as with most of their families. Years of participating in local art shows & farmers markets with her jewelry line, Bella Petunia is how Jaclyn had the opportunity to get to know all of these talented people. Trunk Show was recently voted Best Gift Shop in North Lake Tahoe & Truckee! Trunk Show employs 5 local people and sells the works of local artists, thereby keeping the money spent in the store right here in our community, supporting people who actually live here in Tahoe!
Back to Jaclyn’s Journey:
MS is a disease often perceived as a guaranteed diagnosis of progressive disability, but Jaclyn is a fighter – a fighter who has found an alternative procedure to halt the progression of MS – a procedure that will allow her to continue her passion – rocking her Trunk Show store and her Bella Petunia jewelry line, and continuing to live, thrive, and enjoy life.
The procedure is called Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant (HSCT) and is a combination of chemotherapy and harvesting and replacing the patient’s own Hematopoietic stem cells with the aim of wiping out the immune system & therefore all signs of MS, then rebooting the immune system with the patient’s stem cells. It’s a remarkable procedure with 78% of patients having the progression of MS completely halted! Many patients experience a reversal of symptoms and repair of neurological and nerve damage that was otherwise thought to be permanent.
MS & HSCT are finally beginning to get a little media coverage thanks to Selma Blair sharing her experience. She just had this procedure done at Northwestern University in Chicago where they have been running clinical trials. The trial is almost complete & they are no longer accepting new patients. They will soon be submitting results to the FDA with hopes of having it approved here in the US, but that will take about 10 years. Unfortunately, at this time Jaclyn’s symptoms are progressing and she doesn’t feel as though she can wait that long, so she has found a facility outside the U.S. where she has been accepted.
The facility that Jaclyn is going to is called Clinica Ruiz & is run by top Mayo Clinic hematologists and oncologists. They’ve been performing HSCT for over 20 years and are the world’s leader in this field. Although the statistics & results of this procedure are exponentially better than that of any disease-modifying drug prescribed to MS patients, there is very little knowledge about it here in the US. We’d like to change that!
How You Can Help:
Jaclyn’s hope in sharing her story is not only to raise the funds needed to receive treatment for her, as it is not covered by insurance, but to also spread the word about the healing capacity of HSCT so that other people living with MS may look into receiving it for themselves.
Here is the link to the fundraising campaign where you can find more information about this treatment, the facility & Jaclyn’s journey:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/jaclyn-woznicki-fights-ms-with-hsct?member=2670272
Moving Forward:
Jaclyn loves this community and hopes to continue supporting it through local art.
We wish Jaclyn the BEST!
For more info:
www.tahoetrunkshow.com
@tahoetrunkshow