They just keep coming!

Last month - October 2011 - logged the second highest number of visits to this blog in its existence. As I have stated before, I am constantly amazed at the number of hits this site still gets. I feel kind of bad since I hardly ever post here anymore, so here I am.

Hardly a week goes by without me getting an email or a comment from someone expressing their good wishes/blessings on me and my family or to thank me for writing the posts I did. That is extremely gratifying. As I said when I started this, this blog was for me - especially when it started. I will admit as I talked to and "met" other people with MSA I did get some inspiration to try to offer some posts that I thought might help those going through the hell that is a degenerative neurological disease.

I have noticed that the second most popular post here is my post about stem cell treatments. I understand this as one of the great agonies of MSA is the lack of treatment. I am doing more research now and will do an additional post when I feel I have anything new to add. For now I stick by the recommendation of the original post - stem cell treatment, especially since it involves extensive cost and travel, is not something I feel is worth it. It also could be very dangerous. The hospitals that are doing the procedure are not under any medical protocol approvals like we are used to here in the U.S. It is still very much an experimental procedure. I do not want to take away hope from anyone. I definitely know the burning desire to do SOMETHING to try to beat back this evil malady. I also recognize that I am only giving my opinion. However, it is an educated opinion. I have spend many hours researching the stem cell procedures that are out there now. I have even had two email "conversations" with Doctors in China that work in facilities that do the procedures. (both told me, "off the record" that they would not have the procedure done on themselves or a loved one with MSA - FYI) So, I will revisit this sometime in the next six months.

I am still upset by the lack of views the posts "Maybe this will help" parts 1-3 get. Those contain things I wish I had been told when my wife and I were going through the daily trials and challenges of MSA. I recommend you read these if you are a caregiver. I am not claiming to have all the answers. Heck, I don't even have all the questions. What I tried to do was tell you what we faced, and some of the ways we made it better. If the MSA advances for you like it did for us, knowing ahead of time can be a great help. A lot of our "fixes" we came up with only worked for us for a very short time due to the progression of the symptoms.

I wish everyone affected by MSA my best. Family members, patients, medical staff dealing with the symptoms, researchers working on finding out what exactly is going on with the disease and hopefully working on a cure are all in my thoughts. Best wishes and good luck to all of you. Please feel free to comment or write me - gumbypoole@aol.com