Mrs Regnault has three young children: Mack, 13, Kitty, 10, and Charlie, 8.
She was getting the treatment for them, she said.
"I want to be the person that can go for walks with them and be part of their life, in a living way. I want to be a full-time mother. I'm doing it very much for my children.
"They are my being, my life really at the moment."
She fears without stem cell treatment she will eventually be confined to a wheelchair and may lose her sight.
"Each time I have an attack I can't recover from that."
"I take the drugs, but progressively I will still get worse, so I need to just do it ... I can't keep my head in the sand anymore."
Stem cell treatment works by removing fresh stem cells from the patient's bone marrow and then destroying the malignant cells with chemotherapy.
The removed stem cells are then transplanted back into the patient.
As the treatment is not yet available in New Zealand, Mrs Regnault has applied to hospitals overseas and has been accepted in Singapore and Russia.
Not knowing when to expect an attack, or how quickly the disease would progress was difficult.
"You just don't know where you are going to be today, or week to week. That's the insidious nature of it."
The attacks had been getting worse, she said.
"I've had attacks but I've always come out from it. For the first 15 years I was in denial. The last two or three years they have been getting more intense.
"I walk 200m and now and then my legs start to drag."
Although she takes medication, it does nothing to stop the progression of the disease, she said.
"There's been nothing out there, there's been the drugs and stuff but there's nothing that's given us hope that we can stop it."
Stem cell treatment was the only option, she said. The Givealittle campaign started on Saturday and so far the response had been fantastic, Mrs Regnault said.
"People are just amazing. They're so kind and hopeful and thoughtful. I really hope that one day we can do this type of thing for someone else. It's very humbling ... I never thought this would be part of my life."
The couple has established the "I Believe Trust" and will be running a number of fundraising events.
The first event will be a charity relay in which family members will run 252km in a 12-hour relay along the Waikato River on December 6.
Donations can be made through the Givealittle website at http://www.givealittle.co.nz/cause/Ibelievetrustrunathon
Mrs Regnault hopes to start treatment in August next year.
