FOR mum-of-five Sarah Waters, this is her last hope.

Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis six years ago, the 47-year-old is now severely disabled.

Confined to a wheelchair without the use of her legs and arms, Sarah relies on her children to carry out the simple tasks most take for granted.

She became so fearful of her future, she applied to assisted suicide clinic Dignitas in Switzerland where she planned to end her life.

But now Sarah has renewed hope.

There is a new radical treatment overseas that could halt the progress of the degenerative disease and the fearless mum is planning to complete a parachute jump in a desperate bid to raise the £70,000 she needs.

Sarah, said: “It would mean everything in the world to have this. All I want to do is be a normal mum, a normal wife. I just want to me again. To walk would be amazing but even to cook, I cannot describe what that would mean. When I had my babies, you just want to look after them. You never think this will happen.

"This is everything, my last hope."

Sarah, from Poole, always led an active lifestyle. She ran a bed and breakfast and loved keeping fit.

Her world changed when she was diagnosed with Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis in 2010 after her left leg began to drag.

"It was a relief to get the diagnosis but I was scared, really scared. All I could see was wheelchairs."

But last year, Sarah became frightened at how fast the condition had deteriorated and how it was affecting her children, Charlie, 23, Holly, 21, Nancy, 18, Sidney, 17 and Stanley, 15.

"Things start to go. You can't do your own hair, you can't drive, you can't eat very well. It all cuts away at you slowly.

“But last May after a month’s stay in hospital it was apparent that I needed full time care. I was devastated. I can't wash myself, dress myself. Basically I am totally dependent on help. I began to sink lower and lower into severe depression. I feel like I have no quality of life, and having to ask for help to be washed and dressed is degrading.

"I realised it wasn't the life I wanted. "

Sarah decided she wanted to end her life and even told her children about her plans.

“Telling your children that you want to end your life and watching their faces was without doubt the most horrific thing I ever had to do.

"You try to imagine it, but it is a million times worse, believe me.

"As a mother when your children are crying, your instinct is to comfort them but I caused this so I couldn't.

"I sank again, further into depression. I saw doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, nurses. Nothing or nobody could help me. I didn't want to put on my children anymore. Every day I thought I couldn't feel any worse but I was at rock bottom. All I did was cry for weeks. I didn't want to go anywhere, see anyone, I couldn't eat. All I did was research suicide. All my dreams would be so vivid of when the kids were little when I was walking and laughing with the children but I'd wake up and after a couple of seconds, I realised they were just horrible dreams.

"My plan was to end my life by the end of the summer."

However, there was hope. She read about the case of a patient with the same, most severe type of MS, who underwent revolutionary hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) overseas and can now even walk again.

“I felt a little light go on inside me, a glimmer of hope. Something just clicked in me."

The treatment that wipes out and then regenerates the immune system can halt progression of aggressive multiple sclerosis and even reverse its symptoms.

MS occurs when the immune system strips nerve fibres in the brain and spinal cord of myelin, a fatty insulating material without which nerve signals cannot be transmitted properly.

Symptoms range from blurred vision or tingling sensations to paralysis. Usually the disease progresses to become more aggressive over time but some patients find their health deteriorating rapidly.

The treatment takes stem cells from the patient before injecting powerful chemotherapy drugs to destroy the faulty immune system.

The stem cells are then transplanted back into the body to generate a new functional immune system with no ‘memory’ of attacking the brain.

It is potentially life-threatening, particularly as patients are very vulnerable to infection but Sarah feels it is her best option.

The treatment is available to a limited number of patients on the NHS and is still in trials in the UK.

Because of the progression of Sarah's illness, she doesn’t meet the criteria for experimental trials in this country so she is hoping to travel to a clinic in the Philippines.

“I know there are risks but I don't care because at least I'll know I've done something because I could just be dead now.."

Sarah is daunted by the fundraising and she knows that nothing is guaranteed but the possibility of hope has made a huge difference to her life.

"I didn't just want to sit back and let everyone else fundraise. I've visited the skydiving place and I've been told I can do it. They are just going to strap my legs up.

"To experience that is going to be amazing. To have been so low I wanted to end it all and to be able to experience the freedom of a parachute jump with the hope that my family life could change, I can't ask for anything more at the moment.

"I feel like I have been given another chance."

To support Sarah, go to justgiving.com/crowdfunding/sarah-waters-skydive