Lately she has not been able to take any food orally and just uses a feeding tube. The problem being, she is unable to chew or coordinate tongue, pallet etc, to successfully swallow. During that last two days she has been able to consume part of an orange and a brownie.
The other high was on Friday morning when Dr. Schof scheduled a meeting with all the patients and caregivers for a question and answer session. There were about 20 patients present and the session started off with patient introductions and brief summary of their experiences. About half were new enough not to have much the share, but several had been here before and shared details with the group. Paraplegics report major improvements in muscle control. They are not able to walk but they can stand and the use the toilet which they could not do before. One case that I thought was very interesting was a Doctor with Parkinson's tried the treatment. Her son, also a doctor, came with her but was claimed to be quite skeptical. They mother and son both claim that there is no question that her symptoms have be reduced to the point that she is not taking her medication. Her knee jerk was brisk and now it is normal and her tremors are much reduced (even without meds).
Regarding the treatments, Dr Schof has a rather mysterious way of administering the schedule. Generally they give one or two doses per day of stem cells, either by IV or inter muscular injections and sometimes by IV drip. It is not clear to me how they decide on the one or two injections. There is one other "procedure" as they call it, that is given in another hospital, this procedure involves directing the stem cells more in the area that they are needed, generally they are given somewhere in or around the spine. Patients are no notified more than a day in advance that a "procedure" is going to happen. Jill had one "procedure" scheduled but it was cancelled due to the fact that she was running a fever.
The doctors and patients that have been around say that results usually show up in the first few days, then after about 6 weeks and most of the time continue after the patient leaves.
I am going to try and post every few days and if I can figure it out I would like to put some video and photos on the Blog.
Steve
Dear Steve and family,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the good interim report. It sounds that stem cell therapy is delivering on its promise of cellular reconstruction. I realize it's still early, but appears promising.
You may know that Pres Obama lifted Bush's short-sighted ban on federally-funded stem cell research, other than on the original 21 lines of cells. A syndicated columnist, Kathleen Parker, criticized Obama for wasting time and energy on this, since there were already stem cells available for research. I wrote a letter to our local paper, with CC to Parker, commenting that science policy should be left to people more knowledgeable than a reporter; I received numerous favorable comments.
I'm curious to know the background for the stem cells that Dr Schof used.
Barbara and I send our love and best wishes for continued favorable news.
Ron Paitich
Jill,
ReplyDeleteI love you. I love the moment of the morning when I think of you.
Love,
Sitara.
Jill,
ReplyDeleteIt was good seeing and talking to you on Saturday. I send all my love & hope for the best. Hope to hear good news soon! Love you!
xoxo!
Love,
Karli
Jill,
ReplyDeleteWe all had a great time talking to you on Saturday. It is great news that you have seen progress already. Keep us updated on your progress.
Talk to you soon
Love Karl & Lesa
Hey Jill,
ReplyDeleteI think of all the fun we had in Australia that summer of '01 with 38 Priory students & Fr. Maurus. Good times. Let's have a re-union at Priory when all this is over and share pics.
In the meantime my wife and I will be praying for you daily. Remember "always we begin again".
Love Paul & Sylvia Trudelle
PS My son Pete says HI.