The High Price of Hope

She helped deliver her own grandchild, was forever bringing home stray animals, and worked as a volunteer at her local hospital. Now Willie Terpstra badly needs help herself. Last year, mystified by the sudden slurring of her speech, the lively 64-year-old from Rotorua, New Zealand, was diagnosed with motor neurone disease and told she had two or three years left. With her speech deteriorating, she flew with her husband Rein to Holland, from where they migrated two decades ago, desperately seeking treatment. "But they told us the same thing - there's really nothing," says Rein. Then he and Willie heard of...