Two fingers in the middle of the night. That's what Barb Farrell is hanging onto.

"It was July 4th at one in the morning," she says in a tone just above a whisper. "I woke up and I could move two of my fingers and my hand.

"I thought, at last it's starting."

Her husband, Patrick, with personal support worker, Paulette Munroe, has moved Barb from her wheelchair into an armchair in her living room after wheeling her into the house. She's just returned from the hospital to stay and her 10-year-old son, John, greets her with a big hug and the teddy bear she's had since she was an infant.

She hasn't been home since she was whisked off to hospital May 11.

She hasn't yet seen the chandelier her mother surprised her with and that her husband had hung for her in the dining room.

She hasn't yet seen how Paulette has prepared the house for her return.

But she has a story and she wants to tell it.

"This was my last hope," explains Barb. "Everyone else came out of the procedure room with something changed for the better immediately after.

"I thought: 'My God, I'm the one person it won't work on.'"

The procedure is angioplasty on veins in the neck. It appears that a good portion of patients with multiple sclerosis have blocked veins, preventing regular blood flow from the brain. By using angioplasty, a procedure more commonly used on heart patients, doctors are able to restore regular blood flow.

But the diagnosis and the treatment approach has been relegated to the realm of experimental in Canada.

There are indications that angioplasty, which doctors say is relatively simple and of low risk, eases some of the symptoms of MS.

Until Italian doctor, Paolo Zamboni, dubbed this condition CCSVI (chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency) and presented the angioplasty procedure to correct it, people with MS were left helpless to deteriorate, some symptoms somewhat controlled by medication, but no absolute cause and no absolute cure in sight.

"So is it real or is it placebo?" Dr. Sandy McDonald asks, recalling a recent conversation he had with an MS patient. "She said: 'Well if it's placebo, I want it.'