Merry Christmas!

This past week, a friend of mine sent me a message. Now, you may have seen it before, but I hadn't so I would like to share with all of you.


The "W" in Christmas

Each December, I vowed to make Christmas a calm and peaceful experience. I
had cut back on nonessential obligations -- extensive card writing, endless
baking, decorating, and even overspending. Yet still, I found myself
exhausted, unable to appreciate the precious family moments, and of course,
the true meaning of Christmas.

My son, Nicholas, was in kindergarten that year. It was an exciting season
for a six-year-old. For weeks, he'd been memorizing songs for his school's
"Winter Pageant."

I didn't have the heart to tell him I'd be working the night of the
production. Unwilling to miss his shining moment, I spoke with his teacher.
She assured me there'd be a dress rehearsal the morning of the
presentation. All parents unable to attend that evening were welcome to
come then.

Fortunately, Nicholas seemed happy with the compromise. So, the morning of
the dress rehearsal, I filed in ten minutes early, found a spot on the
cafeteria floor and sat down. Around the room, I saw several other parents
quietly scampering to their seats. As I waited, the students were led into
the room. Each class, accompanied by their teacher, sat cross-legged on the
floor. Then, each group, one by one, rose to perform their song.

Because the public school system had long stopped referring to the
holiday as Christmas," I didn't expect anything other than fun, commercial
entertainment - songs of reindeer, Santa Claus, snowflakes and good cheer.
So, when my son's class rose to sing, "Christmas Love", I was slightly
taken aback by its bold title.

Nicholas was aglow, as were all of his classmates, adorned in fuzzy
mittens, red sweaters, and bright snowcaps upon their heads. Those in the
front row-center stage -- held up large letters, one by one, to spell out
the title of the song. As the class would sing "C is for Christmas," a
child would hold up the letter C. Then, "H is for Happy," and on and on,
until each child holding up his portion had presented the complete message,
"Christmas Love."

The performance was going smoothly, until suddenly, we noticed her; a
small, quiet, girl in the front row holding the letter "M" upside down --
totally unaware her letter "M" appeared as a "W."

The audience of 1st through 6th graders snickered at this little one's
mistake. But she had no idea they were laughing at her, so she stood tall,
proudly holding her "W." Although many teachers tried to shush the
children, the laughter continued until the last letter was raised, and we
all saw it together. A hush came over the audience and eyes began to widen.
In that instant, we understood the reason we were there, why we celebrated
the holiday in the first place, why even in the chaos, there was a purpose
for our festivities.

For when the last letter was held high, the message read loud an clear...


"C H R I S T W A S  L O V E"



Here's wishing you all a very Blessed Christmas!

God Bless!

Boy, I hope...

Sunday, December 18, 2010…

Crap!  Burned my hand again this morning after Mass!  Every time I walk with a cup of coffee I spill it all over... even if it is only half of a cup.

One of the hopes I have after receiving adult stem cell therapy is to be able to carry an open cup of coffee without burning myself.

I hope to be able to walk smoothly and in a straight line.

I hope I can walk stairs while carrying something that takes both hands.

My son was a cross-country runner in high school.  Because of my MS, my legs do not have the strength or coordination to jog, let alone run so I couldn't run with him on his training runs. 

I hope that I can run again.

I hope to be able to lift my leg and step into the bed of my pickup instead of turning around, sitting on the tailgate and sliding on my butt.

I hope that I can take my son pheasant hunting and walk the fields and not just driving the truck and blocking.

I hope to be able to walk to the tree stand when deer hunting instead of having someone drive me out to the stand and then have to come get me later.

I hope to gain back my balance so I can step into a boat and not fall into it or to walk the steps at Kauffman Stadium without falling and people around me think I’m drunk.

I have lost most of the feeling in my fingers and hands and it is difficult to feel anything.

I hope to be able to type on a keyboard without watching the screen to make sure I am typing the correct words.

I hope to be able to stick my hand in my pocket and feel if I have change or if my keys are in my pocket.

I hope to be able to turn the pages of a magazine or newspaper.  I just can't feel the pages.

I hope to be able to tie my own jig on my fishing line instead of relying on someone else to do it for me.

I hope to be able to button the cuffs of my long sleeve shirt and the top button on my shirt without always relying on my wife to be around to do it for me.

The roof of my mouth and the left side of my tongue is numb causing me problems with saying some words correctly.

I hope to quit biting my tongue and cheek!!  It's getting really sore.

I hope to be able to articulate words better again.

I used to have a great memory and could remember things in detail but now I sometimes feel like I walk around in a fog.

I hope to remember the things that I have done a few times at work without having to ask coworkers how to do it again.

I hope I can remember all the items I went to the store for so I don’t have to continue making another trip back to the store.

These are just a few of my frustrations.  I hope that the therapy helps eliminate some of them.

Some of the people that have had stem cell therapy at Stem Cells For Hope in Tijuana have seen some amazing progress…

One young lady that I have communicated with was misdiagnosed with Lupus for over 10 years.  Then, she lost her eyesight in her left eye and was diagnosed with Relapsing and Remitting MS.  Over the next two years she slowly digressed to a point where they said that her MS may have progress into Secondary Progressive MS.  She had severe fatigue, cognitive issues, numbness in her extremities, lack of coordination in her limbs, blindness in her left eye and constant pain.  All of this left her unable to work.  The standard medical treatments for MS here in the US were no longer working for her.  So in February of 2010, she elected to go have stem cell therapy in Tijuana.  During the week there she said she was completely in awe of her physical improvements.  Since receiving her treatment, she has seen a dramatic improvement in her quality of life.  Her limp has disappeared, her pain has subsided, the numbness is gone, she has far less fatigue and her vision has returned!  After going to the eye doctor, the tests showed that her left eye has 20/30 vision.

This is my hope.  To get back what I have lost and to return to what I used to do and that I took so much for granted.

God Bless!

Where I've been

The Diagnosis:

In March 1995, I had my first known exacerbation of MS.  I woke up one morning with parethesias on my right side, which is like the pins and needles feeling you get when your feet fall asleep only this didn't go away.  In April, the right, back side of my neck felt like a severe sunburn and developed into an itch you cannot imagine.  Nothing would relieve it.  In May, my right arm went numb and then the numbness traveled down my entire right side.  It was like I had had a stroke.  I had to swing my right leg when walking.  Typing became difficult and a severe handicap with my work in the technology field.  I am, also, right handed so a simple thing as signing my name became difficult.  At this point, our family doctor ordered a MRI.

The MRI came back showing a white spot on the spinal cord.  When the film was first read, the doctors thought I had a spinal cord gliaoma or tumor.  We were stunned.  The neurosurgeon asked for a second opinion from a neurologist.  After he reviewed the film he wasn't sure if it was a tumor or some sort of demyelination due to MS or a virus.  Several months of treatments and heavy dosages of steroids followed along with debate about which of the three we were actually dealing with.  Finally, it was decided the only way to find out was to do a biopsy of the area, which was highly risky and could leave me paralyzed or worse.  Because of the high risk, I decided I wanted to go to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN for the procedure.

After two days of testing, review of those tests and my medical records, the doctors at Mayo determined it was, at least, not a spinal cord tumor.  What a huge relief!  It was still unknown if this was MS or a virus.  The lead neurosurgeon told my wife and I if it was MS there would have to be time and space between this exacerbation and the next one.  He explained there was no definitive test to determine if I had MS or not.  We returned home uncertain what the future held but celebrated it was not a tumor as first thought.   I had a new lease on life!

During the next eight months, I gradually got better.  I regained most of the feeling I had lost and my motor skills returned to almost what they were before.  Then, in the fall of 1996, the parethesias returned, only in my right foot.  I was then diagnosis with Relapsing and Remitting MS and the heavy doses of steroids resumed to lessen the effects of this exacerbation.  I was told there is no cure and they are not sure why the body attacks itself.  I was informed there were drugs I could take to reduce the number of relapses I may have and would decrease the effects the relapses have on my body.

The Treatment:

The first drug I took was an injection every other day for two years, but I had difficulty living with the side effects which included flu-like symptoms, depression, fever and body aches.  My neurologist switched me to another drug, however it required an injection every day and I developed extremely sore injection sites.  Then, I was switched to the drug on am currently on and have been for 8 years.  It is a once a week injection which I take on Friday nights.  I still suffer from flu-like symptoms, body aches and fever.  I feel like crap most of Saturday and very tired on Sunday.  But I feel well enough the rest of the week to function at work and help at home.

While other drugs are being tested and sound promising, we have also seen drugs such as Tysabri have high risk side effects such as the possibility of a brain infection that causes death.

How MS Has Affected Me:

While my form of MS (Relapsing and Remitting) is not as aggressive as other types, I still lose ground each time I have an exacerbation.  MS damages the nerves in the central nervous system by attacking and eating away the myelin sheath that covers them.  When it goes into remission the myelin heals but cannot return totally to what it was.  Think of the nerves as a coated piece of wire.  The coating is the myelin sheath.  When you are a child that "coating" grows and stretches with the nerve as you become an adult.  When the sheath is damaged as it is in MS, the nerve (or the wire) and the sheath have the ability to repair themselves, but the sheath cannot stretch to cover the nerve as it once did.  The electrical currents that run along our nerves is disrupted each time it hits one of the damaged areas in sheath.  It’s like that wire having a short circuit due to the coating being chewed away.

Because of the damage done to the myelin sheath covering my nerves, I lose ground each time I have an exacerbation.  The amount of ground loss depends on how severe the exacerbation is.  I always recover some ground but my body cannot recover back to what it was before the exacerbation.

In the years since I was diagnosed, I have lost most of the feeling in my hands and feet.  I am numb from my chest down.  My family is amazed I am able to continue walking because my feet are so numb.  I get fatigued easily when walking and suffer from loss of strength.  I have difficulty writing and my writing has become illegible.   My balance is off to the point I fall occasionally.  My last MRI showed spots on my brain.  I have always had a photographic memory, but now struggle to find words I want to say.  With my most recent exacerbation, I have become numb on my on the left side of my face, roof of my mouth, and left side of my tongue so now I have difficulty saying the words I've struggled to recall..

I get up every day with nerve pain.  Nerve pain is hard to describe.  Nerve pain is different than the pain you feel when you stub your toe or hit your elbow.  It can be an ache or sharp pain that no matter what you do, you can't get rid of it. The medications you normally take for most pain, doesn't work on nerve pain.  I take medications specifically for nerve pain and sometimes even they do not work.

I can no longer do a lot of things I like doing or am limited.  I love to hunt and fish, but not having my balance and being fatigued so quickly limits my ability to do much.  It's difficult for me to do some of even the simplest tasks around home.  Imagine not having your balance and trying to get on a ladder to change a light bulb!

Why Stem Cell Therapy:

I am encouraged by the research I have done on the Stem Cell Therapy that I hope to receive.  I have been in contact with others who have received the therapy and I am amazed with the results they have had.  They have encouraged me to have the therapy as soon as possible as the less damage there is to reverse, the better the outcome. 

In my next entry, I will cover what it has done for some other people and share what I hope it will do for me.  So stay tuned!

God Bless!

The adventure has started.

This undertaking started about 16 months ago.  My brother, a vet in Carrollton, TX, started performing stem cell therapy medical trials on dogs with hip dysplasia and arthritis.  He would remove some fat from the back of the neck of the dog, send it to a processing clinic in San Diego, CA who would extract the stem cells and send that animal’s stem cells back.  These stem cells were then injected back into the same animal that they were removed from.  What he saw was an immediate response from the dogs.  They were acting like they were no longer afflicted with their disease.  From what he was seeing with this stem cell therapy, he encouraged me to look into getting stem cell therapy for my Multiple Sclerosis.

Due to his findings and the excitement that I saw in him, I started performing my research.  Because of my Faith and beliefs, embryonic stem cell treatment was not even a consideration and Adult Stem Cell Therapy was the only option.  The type of Adult Stem Cell Therapy that I was interested in was similar to what my brother was doing where they would take cells from my body, process them for stem cells and implant them back into my body.  This eliminates all possibilities of rejection or other issues. 

Unfortunately, the FDA has not approved adult stem cell therapy in the United States.  Anyone who wants to get stem cell therapy must go to China, Costa Rica, Panama City, Mexico, Germany and other foreign countries.  Since adult stem cell therapy is not FDA approved, health insurance companies will not cover any of the costs associated with this and it must be completely paid for by the patient. 

After months and months of research and talking with various centers and clinics who perform these treatments, one clinic rose to the top of my list.  It is Stem Cells For Hope.  They have treatment centers located in the Kyiv, Ukraine and Tijuana, Mexico.  I shared my findings with my sister who has spent the last 30+ years in the medical industry.  After her review of my findings, her own research and talking with my brother, she has become my biggest supporter and is constantly encouraging me to get the therapy ASAP!  So, when I come up with enough money to cover the cost of the treatment, I will travel to Tijuana  to receive my hope to stop this disease.

Please check back and I will keep you updated on my progress in this endeavor.

God Bless!