Testing Day 3 & 4 Testing ends,treatment decision looms

The final test needed was a couple of x-rays. First off was an x-ray of my chest and then one of my sinus cavity and throat. Shortly afterward we met with Dr. Fedorenko and he gave me some very welcome news. That would complete the preliminary testing and I could leave the hospital. Yeah! Was able to spend the night at the hotel with Alicia. No bland dinner tonight! Bonus was that I could even sleep in a regular bed instead of the narrow hospital bed.

We decided to eat dinner at some of the restaurants around the hotel that we enjoyed so much. Started off with a pizza at the Italian spot that we ate at first upon our arrival. Tried a different pizza than our previous trip. We both liked the veal pizza that we had on our initial visit. When I get home I want to try cooking a veal pizza on my big green egg ceramic smoker. Can't wait! Later in the evening we went back to the Japenese restaurant that we also liked alot. Its amazing how much better the food is here than we expected. Bonus to the great taste of the food is that the pricing is extremely affordable and reasonably priced.

Alicia wanted to buy a Starbucks coffee cup from Moscow as a souvenir. We found the Starbucks at a mall not far from The Red Square. It was a very modern and beautiful mall. Many western stores in the mall and as such one wouldn't know if you were in a mall domestically or in Moscow. Quite high end for Moscow we believed.

 We jumped on a metro (subway). It was interesting because the metro that we rode had beautiful painting on the side. Very stark contrast to the metro's we rode earlier. They looked old, worn out, and were maybe 50 plus years old. The ones we rode this time were much more modern and a pleasure to ride.

Called it a night after dinner and wanted to watch some Netflix. Unfortunately that didn't happen because the internet in our hotel is spotty at best. We could not stay connected long enough to watch a single episode. Oh well, called it an early night. Another big day tomorrow awaits.

Quickly upon arrival at the hospital in the morning we ran into Dr. Fedorenko. He seemed to be busting at the seams to tell me that my holter test came back very good. Welcome news for me as heart arrythmia's have been a concern for me. An hour later we were called in to his office to go over all of my test results. Was very reassuring to hear all test confirmed that my body, and organs, could withstand the chemo. I'll tell you it was a very impressive battery of test to undergo. Very interesting development was that my MRI showed 20 lesions. WHAT! I've had MRI's for 2 decades and only once did we see a single lesion. Two times the MRI's were done on a high end scanner like the one here. A 3T system. We went over so many things that its hard to notate everything for this blog. What I know first and foremost is that I am very encouraged by today's meeting.

Never experienced testing to that length ever before. Something that happened then impressed me even more. Dr. Fedorenko spent an hour with us explaining many things in great detail. We were allowed to ask as many questions as we wanted. He believes that I am in early stage RRMS which allows for a very good prognosis. My research had shown that this treatment is roughly 75% effective in halting disease progression of all MS types. Because of my case of RRMS he believes that I have a 90-95% of success. You cannot believe how excited and optimistic I am. I've been stoked all day!

Alicia and I had a celebratory dinner tonight in the hotel restaurant. It a very nice upscale Russian eatery. We both had a nice plate of Beef Stroganoff.

A truly successful day and we are very happy that every thing is moving forward with my treatment.
Tomorrow they will start with the stem cell stimulation injections and steroids. Later I will create a post detailing the full treatment schedule. Its quite fascinating to learn about ablating a persons immune system and rebuilding it anew.