As I’m doing dishes at home, I realized that it was just about a year ago that we were trying to decide between fusing Steve’s left leg or amputation. Every ortho doc/specialist that saw Steve said it was the worst knee they had ever seen. A replacement was not even an option. Not even a hinged replacement, as his leg bones were deteriorating as well. At this time, it had been almost 8 months since he could no longer stand at work, We were starting to lose hope that he would ever return. The last few specialists we saw said Steve would never walk again without one of these surgeries.

I didn’t know it at the time but Steve knew his right leg was following right behind the left. He was afraid to tell as I was looking for a glimmer of hope. We then decided to schedule his leg fusion surgery. The surgery was set for January 2.

We kept the surgery date until the weekend before. If for some reason the fuse didn’t take, he would now need a full leg amputation as he would have metal fused in his whole leg bone. There were truly no good options, but we cancelled the Fuse surgery and we asked for the surgeon to call us to begin the process for amputation above the knee.

At this point, Steve’s knee was so painful that he would scream in pain, if it was touched.

For a couple weeks, no call. We took it as a sign. Steve also expressed to me his fear that his “good leg” would end up in the same as the other. At that point I spent endless hours online researching anything that would give us any other options.

Stem cells kept coming up in the search results. I disregarded them for a long time, as we had heard from multiple docs that they would not help him as there was no cartilage left in his knee.

Well, my curiosity got the best of me so I clicked on stem cell therapy. It couldn’t hurt at this point. We also knew nothing about stem cells, so everything we read was eye opening. There was a clinic in Lake Oswego that had a free seminar on a Friday for a couple hours, for people that were looking for more info. I got Mychal to cover me at WOM and I was able to take him to this seminar.

At this point, Steve could not even get into my jeep without me helping him in and out. He had been completely wheelchair bound for months now.
His main issues were
#1 nerve pain. shooting pain in his legs/shoulders and wrists. He compared it to being stabbed with a red hot knife. His knees were also very painful.

#2 Having zero mobility. His left knee had no bone structure or cartilage left. The x-rays looked nothing like a knee. His right knee was close behind, it was a grade 4, bone on bone. Steve could not go anywhere on his own at this point.

#3 He had multiple detached biceps, both rotator cuffs torn, and his right wrist was still healing from an infection he had 8 mo. earlier, which ended up eating up his wrist bones.

#4 No doctor or specialist could pin-point what the heck happened to Steve,
He was finally diagnosed with severe destructive arthritis. Doctors were truly stumped before they made this diagnosis They did agree that Steve had a bunch of connective tissue problems. Doctors had ran close to 100 different blood panels, MRI’s, bone scans, xrays, biopsies.

Steve’s bones and joints were dissolving and nobody knew why. Steve went from walking and working to wheelchair bound in less than a year.

So we signed up to have a consult the following Monday. We still knew nothing more than what we had heard at the seminar. The doc did mention that Mexico was like the wild wild west of stem cells. We thought nothing of it at the time.
We ended up getting 16,000 stem cells in Lake Oswego.

The first thing that happened, even within the first week, is Steve had no nerve pain. He no longer needed Oxycontin and Weed gummies just to get a few hours of sleep. A few weeks later A dog could sit on his knee, and he no longer had the intense pain there. He continued to slowly improve over the next few weeks. Since he had no cartilage in his knee, we did not expect his knee to rebuild itself, but the intense pain had subsided. This felt like a miracle.
We also stopped eating gluten as of January as it causes inflammation.

After all this, I joined Stem Cell groups on FB for more info. I became obsessed and enthralled with Stem Cells and results. We quickly found out that it is illegal to administer live umbilical stem cells in the us. The cells in the US were frozen, then thawed and administered. The cells were then hoped to replicate over time. Acupuncture is recommended weekly.

Once we found out the live stem cell possibilities outside the US, I got Steve an expedited passport and booked a trip to Dream Body Clinic in Puerto Vallarta..
Steve immediately felt comfortable, when he talked to Josh on the phone. (Josh moved to PV from Seattle 10 years ago, after seeing what Stem Cells were capable of, and taking in to account the FDA’s restrictions of live stem cells.)

At this point it had been almost 3 months since stem cell treatment in Lake Oswego. The main improvements were the nerve pain, and that Steve’s biceps were now attached and his rotator cuffs had less pain.

Steve had just under a billion stem cells administered on April 23, 2018. He had 300 million intravenously, and many different injections into multiple joints. including knees, wrists, shoulders.
“That amount is hard to fathom after we paid almost 20K for 16,000 in Oregon.
For the Billion live cells (not frozen) it was a few thousand cheaper even including the flight/hotel. Steve was in Puerto Vallarta for almost 4 days. In this time he had multiple MRI’s, complete blood panels and consults with the Doctor at Dreambody Clinic. Steve recieved 62,000 times the amount of live stem cells from DreamBody Clinic.

Stem cells are supposed to multiply over time and start healing. When Steve arrived home- (He went by himself, but had assistance with an attendant and wheelchair for the trip) He already was feeling results. Before Mexico, he could not get out of a sitting position easily. He showed me how easy it was to pull himself up.

Over the next few weeks, his energy level increased drastically. I would find him in the basement or the top floor of our house cleaning when I would come home from work. It was truly amazing. Something was going on inside his knees as going up or down the stairs was not an option, even with crutches.

Later in the summer, Steve became able to hang from his ankles freely from the inversion table. I was amazed.

He was gaining muscle again, and was beginning to look like himself. His energy kept improving. He can now walk short distances without an aid. (see video)

Steve was diagnosed with Left Ventricle Heart Failure in 2017, he has been on so many different heart medications for this, and required to daily report his weight and blood pressure in an online journal. A few months ago, he was taken off the heart failure program after an echo showed much improved function.

There are so many exciting things I have noticed over the year, sometimes I forget how awful last year was. He is still far from normal, but I appreciate this past year over 2018 so much.

Many of you know this story, but it just struck me how much a year can change things. Praying that 2020 brings even more healing and hope. Very thankful for credit cards as well.