Ups and downs....

Sunday was a rest day.  We did go to the casino next door to the hotel and we were able to watch the Dallas game in their sports bar. Unlike Las Vegas casinos there is no smoking in the casinos here in Panama which made the whole afternoon enjoyable. Just beyond the casino there is a food court that has several fast food restaurants and we stopped in and picked up a baked potatoe and salad from Wendy's and took it to the room where we watched Sunday night football. 


On the way back to the hotel we checked e-mail and I checked out the MS Direct website. We are still using the hotel computer center, which is a small room with two computers terminals, because we cannot connect to wireless at this location and they want $7.50 a day to plug into wired system in our room. I discovered a post that wrote about a conference that was held on the 11th and 12th of September outlining a proceedure being done in Germany where researchers discovered that all MS patients tested had a narrow vein in the neck that caused blood to become stagnet as it tried to make it's way back to the heart. The proceedure being done by the doctor there was to enlarge that vein restoring bloodflow and they were saying that MS symptoms in all patients treated had decreased. The official name for this condition is, chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency. I had a panic attack at that point, questioning if I was proceeding on the correct course of treatment. John and I talked it over and decided that even if stem cells did not correct the cause of the disease that they would still repair the damage and buy time until the cause could be found and corrected.


In the morning I will have my first apportment with the Stem Cell Institute. I'm concerned and anxious and I'm worrying about things that haven't happened even though John says I shouldn't do that. He lives in a strange world grounded in a reality that not many people can conceive. The Cowboys won!!!  At least I have that going for me.