He struggles to read. He often becomes dizzy when reading and thus cannot due so for extended periods of time. This has had a severe and negative impact on his creative abilities.

Riaan was able to play acoustic guitar prior to becoming sick. He cannot play anymore. When his illness started he had complained that he couldn't remember the chords for the songs anymore. His memory had become tremendously affected and as time went on this continued. Riaan's muscle weakness also exacerbate the problem; he couldn't physically hold onto the guitar chords. Riaan's ability to play the musical instrument eventually diminished and he had to put the guitar away.

Riaan loves to travel, learn about life and meet new people. He has toured the planet extensively, visiting the United States, Great Brittain, Belgium, Holland, France, Luxembourg, Scotland and Germany. He plans to reside in South Africa and study a second language, but since his learning abilities has been affected he had to discontinue his plans.

Riaan loves nature, going out with friends. movies and music and most importantly, life. Our hope is that the stem cell treatment would bring Riaan back to his old self, so that Riaan can continue his studies and continue where he set off before he had gotten ill. Or at the very least we hope that the treatment will enhance his quality of life which has been severely diminished.

Riaan wishes to become a writer. In early 2009 he started writing screenplays. He has already written three but has recently had to discontinue his efforts due to his illness. He suffers from very poor concentration which affects his creative, planning and structuring abilites. He also becomes disorientated  and dizzy when he reads for a while.

You may download and read some of his screenplays which are at the BOTTOM OF THE PAGE. The screenplays are copyrighted and registered.

ILLNESS: Riaan is 31 years old. He started getting sick in January 2007 (aged 28). He had done an extensive weightlifting session one afternoon at his mother's home in Pretoria.

The following days he started complaining about abnormal and severe muscle weakness and an odd feeling in the front-left part of his brain In the coming weeks he complained about a loss of memory, most notably when he played guitar; he couldn't remember the chords anymore.

His ability to speak articulately became affected. He is still able to speak, but more complicated words would often escape him, resulting in basic sentences. His ability to speak his second language, English in a fluent manner has also been affected.

Riaan's IQ is still intact but his concentration has been heavily affected, most notably when reading or studying, he would often become dizzy and he simply cannot concentrate on more complicated tasks.

In the coming months Riaan started to lose his balance; he couldn't walk as fast as he had always done. He stopped working at the end of May 2007.

SCIO: In the following weeks Riaan visited the Scio machine, an incredibly accurate medical device which scans the body and brain.

We desperately wanted to hear what the device had to say because in 2006 Riaan suffered from Bi-Polar depression. The Scio device completely cured Riaan's illness and was very accurate on describing Riaan's condition and symptoms.

After the weighlifting incident we revisted the Scio on several occasion and it gave the following information about Riaan: Loss of brain cells in frontal lobe and weak frontal lobe. Riaan continue to complain about an odd sensation in the front left part of his brain.

We started doing research on frontal lobe dysfunction and was astonished at how many of the symptoms coincide with Riaan's symptoms. Frontal lobe dysfunction often DOES NOT get recognized with regular MRI and CT Scan testing.

We took this information to the neurologists when Riaan went for his MRI and CT Scan. Four different neurologists simply glanced over the information but payed no heed to it. Riaan's tests, including an MRI Scan, CT Scan, EEG, Lumbarpunch and blood tests revealed no abnormalities.

We went for months without a diagnoses but eventually got a diagnosis from Riaan's home town doctor . The doctor described Riaan's condition as  Ataxia. Some of Ataxia's symptoms are very similar to Riaan's, such as the poor balance and slurring of speech. We continue to see other neurologists, Riaan has another appointment coming up soon, because we are not completely satisfied with the diagnosis, but as for now it is all we have.

What is evident though from Riaan's symptoms and condition is that there is no cure for him, other than Stem Cell treatment. We have done hundreds of hours of research on Riaan's symptoms and condition, which is very similiar to other nervous system disorders such as MS, and Muscle Dystrophy. Most nervous system or brain disorders are not cureable.

Favourites:

Books: Anything that's funny (George Carlin or Bill Bryson) or interesting such as  autobiographies (Nelson Mandela and Bill Hicks)

Films: The Shawshank Redemption, Contact, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, I love Documentaries, too.

Music: Anything by everyone from Patty Griffin to Bles Bridges to Green Day. Love jazz music, too.

READ A SCREENPLAY

Attachments:

File	Description	Uploader	File size
Damage Inc.	A mother and her teenaged daughter lose their husband and father. They relocate to a different town. Mother succumbs to drug use while the daughter befriends a man almost twenty years her senior.		287 Kb
Darwin's Clean Sweep	A teenager is forced to quit school and take care of his ill mother by taking up a job as a janitor at the very school he once attended.		320 Kb
Up In Iowa	A suicidal artist fails at several suicide attempts and is sent to live with a dysfunctional suburban family.		269 Kb