Janet Driessen doesn’t get out on her own much, but when she does you can’t miss her.

She’s scooting around town on her wheelchair, with her dog Detour in tow. She’s always positive, beaming smile as she gets to wherever her destination is.

Driessen is hoping that within the next year, people will start seeing her in a whole new light. She is hoping that sometime in the new year, she will be making the trip to Rhode Island, or Albany, N.Y., where she will receive Liberation therapy, a treatment developed in Italy to control Multiple Sclerosis symptoms. While it is not a cure, the treatment has been shown to offset some of the degenerative disease’s crippling symptoms, and Driessen is determined to enhance her quality of life.

“I’m very positive about this,” said the Grimsby resident. “It can make huge changes to my quality of life.”

Limited mobility is just one symptom — she is in a wheelchair. Driessen, 52, wants to be relieved of the other, numerous symptoms caused by the blocked veins her neck, like fatigue.

Dr. Paolo Zamboni, an Italian doctor, claims that blocked veins contribute to Multiple Sclerosis and that unblocking them will help treat it. Liberation treatment, which is used to treat chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency, opens up veins in the neck which Zamboni says causes many of the disease’s crippling symptoms.

“This will give me strength to exercise more and regain some of the abilities that MS has chipped away. That alone would change my life. Other changes for me may include improved breathing, balance, clarity, less spasticity, blurred vision and foot drop to name a few ... There is a possibility of even greater results,” said Driessen.

Once active, Driessen has been forced to slow down over the years. Whether it’s participating in activities with her son, “or other simple pleasures of life,” her battle with MS has slowed her down. There’s the fatigue, the optic abnormalities, pressure sores, she can barely write clearly anymore and she has to sleep in a chair.

“Just to be able to put your shoes or socks on is quite a feat,” said Driessen.

She hasn’t given in, though. While the MS has been very progressive over the past 18 years, she hasn’t given up on things she loves – like fishing and boating. All it takes is a little help from husband John and that positive attitude. She’s even started physiotherapy, and hopes that will assist her in battling back after her Liberation therapy.

Driessen has done plenty of research on Liberation therapy since hearing about it on TV news show W5. In fact, she can probably recite medical jargon just as accurate as a physician from all the reading she has done on the issue.

“I’ve made my decision to do this with well-informed research,” she said, adding she knows the risks, but feels strongly “ I believe I will definitely benefit from this.”

While her end goal is to one day walk again, even a small improvement, such as gaining strength and mobility, will be a world of difference.