Can You Hear Me Now?

Further to my previous post, I have decided feeling sorry for myself is not going to help or change my situation in any way (newsflash!) and I need to seriously look at my options. This comes after I received an email from a dear friend of mine, Jaz. Jaz has muscular dystrophy and has much less use of her body than I have of mine. I’m not even sure of her age anymore, but she wasn’t more than 19 or 20 when I met her, so “mid-20’s” is a safe bet. Anyway, she is wise beyond her years and one of the most inspiring, optimistic people you could ever hope to meet. I met her first online and we’ve only met in person once, back when I was a positive and inspiring person myself. Qualities I’ve been lacking recently. Jaz lives in a small town I have never been to but I fully intend to get my dad to take me out there one weekend so I can see her and give her a much deserved hug for all the kicks in my butt she has so gently given me via email and Facebook.

So Jaz wrote me after reading my last blog post and encouraged me to seriously look into self-managed care, which is where the health region assesses your needs and funds you for a personal caregiver based on your needs. The difference between this and Home Care is that I am responsible for hiring the person myself, and paying them, taking care of payroll deductions and all that stuff. The main reason I have put off getting registered with this service is because you can’t be on Home Care at the same time, so if the person you hire is sick or doesn’t show up one day, you’re screwed. It sounded like too much stress to me, since I can’t dress myself and stuff. But Jaz made quite a few good points and got me thinking about how the pros outweigh the cons, especially since I live alone and could probably get funding for someone pretty much full time, to help with shopping, cooking, cleaning, appointments, even to accompany me to the pool and help me in the change room. And if Jaz can find someone reliable in her small town, I should be able to hire someone in the city. I’m not sure how much money the health region provides you with for pay, but since the economy isn’t what it was, it should be easier to find someone now than it would have been a year ago. As Jaz said, in all her wisdom, “we have to accept the changes that happen to our bodies like it or not. All we can do is adapt our surroundings to maintain our happiness. Being happy is vital.” Jaz, you need to write a book.

So I will be talking to my home care nurse about this next week. It will take awhile to set up, but will hopefully work out for the best.

Another thing I decided since my last post was to increase my StemEnhance shipment to two bottles a month, so I can see how I do on 4 capsules/day instead of 2. So I emailed the guy I ordered from and asked him to increase my autoship, because I didn’t see a way to change my order myself from his website. This prompted him to call me, and put me on a 3-way call with the head office to confirm. After we did that, we continued chatting for a few minutes (without the head office on the line) and I told him I have MS and figured I should try an increased dosage before I give up altogether, since I have this condition I hope to see improved, and I’m not just taking it for “overall health”. Now, understand, this man had never spoken to me before and as far as he was concerned, I’m just one of his many random online customers (he is very high up in the company and has many of those) and did not know I have MS or anything. He said, “hey, I have a friend in the company who has a daughter with MS and he has a really good story, do you want me to see if I can get him on the phone so you can hear what he has to say?” I said sure, why not.

So he calls Dennis in Spokane, makes introductions, and explains to Dennis that I have MS and would like to hear about his daughter. I explain that I’ve been taking 2 StemEnhance per day and was just increasing to 4 per day because I’m not noticing anything, and Dennis said “no, I don’t imagine you would at that low a dose…” He asked me a bit about my health and disease progression, then went into his story:

“My wife and I got involved with StemTech a few years ago and take 6 capsules/day. We are in our mid-70’s and our health was declining, so it has been great for us as we are back to being healthy, active seniors and we are very involved with our church and social activities and love to dance and travel… (etc., etc.) Our daughter lives in San Diego and when the was 47 she was diagnosed with MS. They said she’d had it for about 15 years but sometimes the diagnosis takes a long time. Anyway, when she told us she was needing to use a walker to go to the bathroom because her foot dragged so much when she walked, I insisted she give StemEnhance a try. I told her to take 6/day and let us know how she was doing after a couple months (we don’t really talk very often). So a couple months later we talked, and I asked her how she was doing on the StemEnhance, and she asked `do you want the truth, dad?` I said of course, and she said she didn’t notice ANY difference at all. I was very upset by this, so I called the company to speak with (one of the scientist/doctor types that work on the development of the product) and demanded to know why it wasn’t helping my daughter. He suggested that since the MS has been in her body for many years, she has a lot of myelin damage and would need to take a lot more StemEnhance to fix that (editor’s note - my words, because I can’t remember exactly what he said and StemTech isn’t allowed to say its products fix or cure anything, as is the way it is for all health products that aren’t FDA approved drugs blah blah blah) He said she should work her way up to taking 2 capsules EVERY TWO HOURS throughout her waking hours, and if she gets up in the middle of the night to pee, take 2 more. So I passed this on to my daughter, and since she and her husband are well off money isn’t an object so she started doing that right away. Within two months she was running on her treadmill again.”

Dennis went on to say that they know another women with MS they met at a StemTech conference who used to be in a wheelchair, but over the course of a few months taking 2 capsules every 2 hours she went from the wheelchair to a walker to a cane to not needing any assistance to walk. “I mean, she’s not running marathons by any means, but she’s getting around pretty good.” When you take 2 capsules you are releasing millions of adult stem cells into your body, “so imagine a push like that every two hours”. I mentioned that unlike his daughter, money IS an issue for me. Of course I was given the spiel about how much money I would save if I joined as a distributor and started selling the product myself, you know the drill. I made it clear I am NOT comfortable selling anything PERIOD, but especially something I can’t say really works until I have experienced the results myself. And since, after making a few calculations, I’d need to take around 7 or 8 bottles a month for 4-6 months to know if it was going to help me, (and then wean down to 3/month) that’s a hell of a lot of $$ I don’t have. Dennis simply suggested I look for help and support from friends and family (or “my church” but I don’t have one so that’s not an option). My rep told me if I signed up at the $1,000 level I’d get 24 bottles which is a great start, and of course he would help me with the “business” end of it (”I made $8,000 my first month…”) (gulp).

I hung up the phone and started to cry. I cried because, oh, wouldn’t it be amazing to improve, even a little? And what if I COULD walk without assistance again? I cried because, how many success stories do I nave to hear about from people who take these MLM health products and convince me to sink money into it, just to find out it doesn’t work like that for me? I cried because, I do believe in stem cells and how they can cure diseases, but WHY WHY WHY will it take 20 years before the current research being done will be available to treat us, if not longer??? And in the meantime, we have to shovel out thousands of dollars, searching for help? I cried because even though taking large amounts of StemEnhance is a lot cheaper than going to China, I still don’t have that kind of money.

I called my mom and told her about the phone conversation I’d just had. She told me “you have to try. Don’t even think about the cost. Talk to your dad, and if he is willing to go half with me, then sign up. Or even if he’s not. You have to try it for at least 6 months and we will help you. You can’t give up”. So, I talked to my dad, and this is the result. I should receive my shipment early in the week and I’ll certainly let you all now how it works for me. When I start noticing real, lasting improvement I will shout it from the rooftops. And if it doesn’t work for me and it’s just more money down the drain, well, at least I’m not sitting here wondering “what if?”. I truly believe in stem cell treatments, so, as long as this product really DOES increase the number of adult stem cells being released, then I am hopeful.

Speaking of “what if”, I have watched The Rocker 6 times in the past 8 days and am addicted to the soundtrack. FYI.

Friday was my 41st birthday. I didn’t really want to do anything, because 40 was the big one so I’m not interested in anything major until, like, 50. But my family would have none of that! So my brother and his girlfriend came over on Friday night and made me a yummy dinner (Duska cooked) and I made them watch The Rocker (which they loved). Then on yesterday my mom, Bob, my dad, my brother and Duska (and me) all went to Red Lobster for lunch and birthday cake/wait staff singing, followed by a drive out to Cochrane for ice cream. Later on my friend Shawna came over to hang out (and watch The Rocker), which was nice. Her and Billy are taking me out for dinner next weekend, yay!

I do have my camera back, but haven’t taken any photos yet. So here is one my bro took of my yummy cake yesterday:

I still have one piece left so I’m going to go eat it now.