Been slacking, but I have some big NEWS!

Okay, sorry that I basically completely fell off the face of the earth on my blog. I was doing so good. Then nationals came and went, I had a good road race (Third) and the week went down hill from there. Didn't make the worlds team and had a bit of a rough time swallowing that pill. I headed back to superweek for my summer road trip and had a blast there as usual racing and getting worked on a daily basis. Enough of that. Time for something BIG!

As some of that follow my twitter/facebook have noticed, I've been talking about Germany a bit. Well, I've been following a company called Xcell in germany for about 5 years now. I've been hoping that at some point someone would do enough research in the stem cell area to make me feel okay with allowing them to do some work on me.

Now, I am gonna go ahead and pause for a moment. If you have some "ethically" issue with stem cells, please hold your comments for yourself, email me, or do some research before making any comment about you think its right or wrong, or goes against your "religious" views and get properly educated on the issue.

Anyhow back to what I am doing. I got approval today from the clinic in Cologne that the docs are willing to work on me. Basically its a pretty simple procedure. The docs will take some bone marrow out of my hip, extract the stem cells, do a lumbar puncture, remove some spinal fluid, and mix the spinal fluid and stem cells and replace the fluid back into my spine.

What will this do? Well, thats the million dollar question. No one knows for 100%. I've read lots of patient surveys, research, etc from them. The key thing that makes me feel safe about all this is that no one has gotten worse. I forget the exact numbers, but some where in the 90% range of patients regained some noticeable improvements, which is more then enough of a chance for me.

Why? Well, most of you know some of my issues and some of my story. The short version is that I was paralyzed several years ago, told I'd never walk again. And still have many lingering issues as a result. I still have what I would consider a large amount of nerve pain in both legs/feet. Which, if you've never dealt with nerve pain, you CAN NOT understand it. I assure you, I've broken most of the bones in my body at one point or another, and its something that you simply can not, nor do you want to, understand what it does your mind after years and years of it wearing at you. Another big key thing I am hoping for is that many of the patients have shown improvement in their bowel/bladder control, which is another awesome part of a spinal cord injury. Anyone thats been on a road trip with me knows all about my 10 minute bladder. Hopefully that would be some what better, doubt it can be much worse. There are other areas that I am hoping for improvement. But to be honest, if those 3 things were better, my life would be vastly better.

When? Well, soon. Maybe as soon as the week of September 20 I would be there.

How? Its all pretty simple. I would need to be in the clinic on a monday for some testing. Tuesday would be bone marrow extraction. Wednesday I have the day off. Thursday is lumbar puncture day, the cells would also be implanted same day. I would go back on Friday for follow up. All goes well I can leave saturday to head back to the states. There's a good chance I'll hang around for a few extra days since I am there anyhow.

What do I think of all this? Well, I try and not be a negative person, but not really too much of an upbeat either. I like to try and keep things into a realistic approach. I am trying to not set my hopes up too high on this. If you don't set the bar too high, there's not far to fall if you never hit it. But at the same time, if you never really risk anything, you never get much of a reward. So, in my mind this is my risk. Odds are good from a money stand point this might come close to breaking me, might be time to head back find a job of some degree. But after 7 LONG years, I've come a long way. Both in physical aspects and mental area. And I feel I've done great at putting my head back together and growing as a person. But at the same time I am not really sure how much longer I can hold myself together dealing with the constant pain in my legs.

So, as I've said many times before. There comes a time when you have to put all your cards on the table, be willing to risk it all and lose it all, or you'll never really get any better. I've been told this by a good friend before. "I've never seen anyone thats not afraid to put himself out there like that. You risk it all. I think its your curse though. You see higher highs then anyone will, but see darkness like no one else will." Hopefully this turns into a higher high......

http://www.xcell-center.com/

I'll try and keep everyone updated as to when I am heading over, and once I get there I'll keep everyone in the loop as much as I can as to how things are going! Any questions, comments, concerns, etc, please feel free to either comment or email me!

As always, THANKS EVERYONE!