Twelve months ago it was a different story, with the cheerful mother of four facing a tough and expensive battle as she, her family and a group of supportive friends began fundraising to send her to Moscow for stem cell therapy in the hope it could cure the debilitating disease slowly taking hold of her life.

MS is a condition where white blood cells attack the central nervous system causing damage to the lining around the nerves.

This causes messages from the brain to muscles to be misinterpreted or not reach the destination at all.

Orange’s community raised over $90,000 for Mrs Swain to travel to Moscow’s National Pirogov Medical Surgical Centre for the month-long treatment from June 1.

Now, six months after her “new birthday”, or the day when her stem cells were implanted back into her body to rebuild her immune system from scratch after it was destroyed by chemotherapy, Mrs Swain could not have better news.

“I’ve got no new lesions,” she said.

“There’s no activity up there [in the brain], nothing’s changed.

“The haematologist said he was surprisingly happy about the results.”

Mr Swain said he had noticed plenty of improvements in his wife’s daily routine, including not needing naps throughout the day, no pins and needles in her right hand, no dragging her leg, her sense of balance has returned and her short-term memory is coming back.

For four months after returning from Russia, Mrs Swain was housebound to avoid illnesses as her immune system began to slowly grow back.

While she still must be careful and sanitises anything before she touches it, Mrs Swain has been able to be in public for the past eight weeks and has enjoyed getting behind the wheel of a car again and catching up with friends and family.

She said without the support of Orange’s community the life-changing treatment would not have been possible.