'Last hope': MS-sufferer Barsby in desperate fight for survival – cricket.com.au

The Adelaide Strikers allrounder has battled multiple sclerosis for more than 10 years and with time running out, has found her voice to raise much-needed awareness and funds
“We’re still going to be friends, right?”
Those were the words of Jemma Barsby’s doctor moments before she told the teen she had multiple sclerosis (MS).
That was 10 years ago, when a then 19-year-old cricketer on the rise from Queensland had her life turned upside down, told she had a chronic and uncurable disease she initially knew very little about.
“I remember having to get petrol on the way home, and I was bawling my eyes out,” recalled Barsby.
“It would have been funny for a random at that petrol station to see me.
“It was a Thursday afternoon and I didn’t see the neurologist until Monday, so those couple of days after were a bit daunting.”
A post shared by Jemma Barsby (@jemmaabb)
What had started as just a sore shoulder from bowling at an Australian team camp quickly became a deeper issue, after an MRI scan revealed lesions on her body.
Then the tips of Barsby’s fingers started becoming numb, and they stayed that way for a couple of weeks.
Fast-forward to WBBL|11, and the three-time Big Bash champion has played 139 matches across three clubs. The now 30-year-old has learned, season by season, how to live with her condition, refusing to be beaten even as it takes a heavy toll on her body.
“For me, it’s really like extreme fatigue,” she said.
“I struggle to get out of bed and pretty much do anything. I’m bedridden for pretty much the whole day.
“I try and get some sun, because Vitamin D is crucial for people with MS, but I get heaps of pins and needles in my hands, down my legs and my spine, if I get really bad.
“There’s been days where I get blurred vision. My whole right hand went numb one day, so it kind of varies depending how bad the flare-up is.”
One of the bad days for the ambidextrous Adelaide Strikers spinner came in the Women’s National Cricket League in January 2024. It was hot at Adelaide Oval and Barsby’s South Australians were facing Victoria.
“I was batting, I’d made a few runs and I’d been out there for a while before I could start to feel it come on,” she said.
“Pins and needles, and then the blurred vision started to come. It got to a point where the drinks were running out at the end of every over to regulate my core body temperature.
“I was trying to face and it was so blurry, I was like, ‘I just hope this isn’t a short ball coming at my head, because I’m struggling to see it here’.”
A post shared by Weber WBBL (@wbbl)
It’s not the only time Barsby has been impacted on the field by her MS. During her time with Queensland, her left arm went numb in the middle of a club game. When she was at the Scorchers, teammates had to help her cool down in the changerooms after a flare-up.
With time and experience, she has worked out ways to manage her MS with the help of cooling devices that aim to regulate her body temperature.
“I guess one of the perks of having MS is being able to have unlimited slushies and ice blocks on game day,” she grinned.
“The big thing with MS is you don’t want to go from being really cool to really hot and trying to get back to really cool, because then your body shuts down.
“At drinks breaks, I’ve worn ice vests, and even neck coolers just to try and keep my body temperature down.
“Sometimes I’ve come off and just had a cold shower instead of an ice bath, to avoid going from one extreme to the other really quickly.”
South Australian and Adelaide Strikers teammate Bridget Patterson has seen the inner strength Barsby has shown since moving to Adelaide, witnessing first-hand the extent of her struggle.
“There’s been games where I’ve seen her pretty much not conscious in the changerooms,” said Patterson.
“She doesn’t let it stop her. Jem’s one of those ones who will fight and fight to the end.
“Whether she’s suffering or she’s not, it’s incredible to see. Scary to see sometimes as well, but she’s a fighter and she’s doing great things.”
Part of Barsby’s fight has been finding the courage to speak about her condition.
With many MS symptoms invisible, the Striker has found it challenging to communicate her experiences.
“That’s been a massive thing for me,” she said. “Living with MS, with it being a hidden disease, I think that’s kind of the taboo aspect of it. It’s been an internal thing of me accepting the fact that there is going to be doubters out there that ask, ‘Do I actually have it?’.
“It’s been trying to park that and be like, ‘No, I’m actually out there to raise awareness’.”
Motivated to eradicate such stigmas, Barsby has been spurred on by learning more about others who live with the disease.
“I’ve had multiple people say how they live with it, and at a workplace they’ve had a flare-up and they want to go home, and their bosses don’t have a bar of it,” she said.
“Each person’s different, and because it is a hidden disease, people are hiding away from acknowledging it. So if we can get people to feel comfortable and talk about it, and if I can do that myself, then yeah, that will start the conversations.”
With that in mind, the allrounder has launched a campaign to ‘Whack MS For 6’.
It’s Barsby’s “national call to action”, inviting Australians, and particularly the cricket community, “to bring to life a potential breakthrough treatment that could change the future for people living with multiple sclerosis”.
The 30-year-old is raising funds to support NeuOrphan, an Australian biotech startup developing a new drug in the early stages of development that has shown potential to protect from, and even repair, the damage to nerve fibres MS can cause.
“We’ve got until the end of 2026 to hopefully raise the $6 million to get the Phase 2 human trial going and also manufacture the drug,” Barsby said.
“We’re pretty much the last hope for MS sufferers, because it takes so long for the doctors and scientists to raise the money to be able to do clinical trials and manufacture the drug. So, I guess we’re on a timeline to help save people’s lives.”
A post shared by Jemma Barsby (@jemmaabb)
The South Australia captain has the most common form of the disease, but, true to the selfless nature of her character, Barsby’s time frame is set out to help those suffering in more extreme ways.
“There’s three different types, the relapsing-remitting which I have, there’s the secondary progressive one, and there’s the primary progressive,” she said.
“We want to try and get the people with progressive MS to be able to reverse their symptoms a bit to have a better quality of life.
“That’s why we’ve put the time frame out there. The doctor we’re working with has been working on MS for 20 years to try and find this drug. The time is now to be able to save people’s lives.”
Stepping up to champion a cause that’s close to her heart, Barsby is getting her message across on the field by making love heart gestures during team celebrations in WBBL|11.
“The love heart is for MS survivorship,” she said. It’s obviously something pretty simple that we can do out on the field to get everyone involved. I’m very thankful to the girls for getting around that. Hopefully we can get every team doing it now to create the conversation going forward, and hopefully get more donations.”
With a timeline now set, Barsby knows there is work ahead to reach her goal and ‘Whack MS for 6’.
While last year Barsby was reminiscing on her 10-season WBBL journey as the league celebrated a decade of existence, this year she has been reflecting on a much more personal and impactful milestone of 10 years living with MS.
“It’s definitely shaped the person who I am today,” said the three-time WBBL champion.
“It’s definitely made me appreciate the simple things in life, and to not take things for granted, because it can change in an instant, and you don’t know what the next day entails.
“I think it’s also made me really resilient. The fact that this was thrown at me at pretty much my peak time in life – 19 years old – when I was getting into the cricket setup properly. I’ve grown up immensely since that time.”
Barsby’s campaign is committed to improving the lives of the more than 33,000 people living with progressive MS in Australia. While she remains as devoted as ever to the game she loves on the field, it’s off the field where she is looking to create a longer lasting legacy.
Your No.1 destination for live cricket scores, match coverage, breaking news, video highlights and in‑depth feature stories.
cricket.com.au is a production of CA Digital Media – a division of Cricket Australia.

source