Owe everyone a big apology for stepping away from publishing any new posts for quite awhile. The treatment that was scheduled for April was postponed until October 31. Just three short weeks away (Yay). I want to tell you that I am very sorry for not keeping you all informed of what was happening. Promise to do a much better job going forward.
Alicia and I fly to Moscow on the 27th of October this year (2016). We will arrive on the 28th and my admission into the hospital is the 31st. This will give us chance to do some preparation for my one month stay. We'll likely take in a little bit of sight seeing and maybe pickup a few knick knacks to bring home. Planning to stock up on snacks, soups, drinks and whatever I may need to have for when Alicia leaves. She will be staying there for the first 10 days. I'm very appreciative of her trekking half way around the world with me. She is much more of a world traveler than I, so I'm grateful to have her experience for this trip.
Must tell you that I am overly eager to begin the treatment. Waiting for two years and 4 months is a long long time. Its seems like forever that I reached out to Anastasia to see if Dr. Federenko will be willing to treat me. It's hard to put into words as to how excited I was to hear YES!!! Looking very forward to meeting these two people.
Many people have written blogs about their experience of getting this treatment around the world. It seems to me that many second guess themselves or are just downright scared. Wonder if I will follow suit with what I perceive to be human nature and natural feelings. So far so good, but we will see what happens as the clock continues to wind down.
Hope you all will follow along as we plan to post photos and try to tell the story so that everyone can get a feel of the experience. Should be a unique trip and adventure. My wish is it will be a story that gives people hope, when it feels like there may be no hope. MS is a hopeless disease currently. My friend Jaime, who also has MS, told me the other day. "Good luck, this gives us hope" My belief is that HSCT does give our MS community hope.
Some say they would never do this treatment. I understand. Things like this are not for everyone. But I would also add this. You really do not know what you would or would not do until you are in this horrible situation. MS is a very lonely disease. As such, making a decision of this sort is lonely business. A person may be surprised at what he or she would do when faced with such a heavy situation. How important are your abilities to you? Is walking, talking, hearing something trivial? Not to me, which is why its a no brainer to seek this treatment from one of the best facilities and medical team in the world. There are many many success story and I aim to be another. It's only a matter of time and it will be approved in the US, estimated to be 6 years. Sadly, time may not be on a MS patients side.
Well, plane tickets are purchased. Hotels reservation made. Wish the clock would hurry. LOL
Till next time friends.
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