Good Days and Bad Days

1, December 2009 - For a bit over seven months the exercise has continued. Most days my strength seems improved and walking easier, but then there are the days I am reminded that muscular dystrophy still controls my every movement by sending me on a trip to the floor.

November was full of these little reminders; more than I have seen since returning from China. Except a few aches and pains and a couple of dents in the 'ol ego, I landed in one piece. 'I'm getting too old for this sh**' I cuss to the empty room, wondering at the same time if all my work is for naught while I'm sliding across the floor on my butt towards my lifting machine.

'Does stem cell treatment work'? I am asked this almost daily and still cannot definitively answer the question. "For me, it does," is my usual response. The combined treatment and expense provide me with the motivational fuel needed to exercise often so I can get the most out of the experience, but when falls happen I find myself questioning things.

However, as I think through it all I try to remember that stem cell treatment was never meant to be a cure. I've got decades of damaged muscles to repair - which ain't gonna happen in a mere handful of months! As long as I'm walking, falls are going to happen - stem cells or not -that's just a part of MD that I expect will never completely go away. So I'll keep up the work, keep reporting the good and the bad and, most of all, keep the faith.