Matthew’s SOD Blog

Gift of Sight

November 19th, 2009

The gift of sight, as many of you who have suffered eye conditions know, is truly a gift.  Many sighted people take for granted this gift and what all comes with it.  For those who live with diminished sight, a great understanding of this gift occurs, when sight becomes possible.  This is where we are in gaining sight through umbilical cord blood stem cells.  We believe in and know for fact that sight restoration and improvement (and healing of many other diseases) can come from stem cell treatment.

 Matt and I spent six weeks in China from June 28, 2009 until August 6, 2009 at the People’s Republic Hospital in Qingdao, China.  During this time Matt received eight stem cell treatments, of which two were his own bone marrow stem cells.  He had four treatments by IV and four treatments by Spinal Puncture.  His treatments were spaced four or so days apart.  He began his treatments on Wednesday July 1^st, with treatments thereafter rotating on Monday, Friday and Wednesday, until we left China August 6^th to return home.

There are several different aspects of this journey I want to share.  First and foremost is the Beike Biotechnology Medical and Health treatment program.  I believe this is of utmost importance to all, as Stem Cell Therapy is and should be the medicine of the future. Secondly, the daily living in a foreign country, especially in a hospital, this is our personal adventure and it allows for some great stories.  The third area of interest is to explore the culture of China and how differently the Chinese live compared to Americans, from our eyes. And of course, the whole reason we went – to give the gift of (more) sight to Matt. We want to discuss and share his healing story, as well as, many other people’s healing stories, the people we met and lived with for six weeks.  Our journey crossed paths with people from all over the world.  These are people individually on their own journey for healing. These stories are about people who are living with so many different diseases and looking for their hope at a better life. Because of Stem Cell Therapy these people are now enjoying a better quality of life.  With these people we saw daily miracles of healing. 

 Matt’s Success so Far

Matt started noticing better sight after two treatments.  Across the street from the hospital was a bright red big neon dragon sign.  We could see this out of our hospital room window.  Upon arrival, Matt could see a big red blob of color – not distinguishable at this point.  After his first IV injection, and following lumbar puncture treatments he was able to determine it was a dragon.  As Kris and I had not mentioned the sign, being busy with all the other things we were taking in, it surprised us both that he could now see what the sign really was.  Matt then had his own bone marrow removed and the stem cells injected by both IV and lumbar puncture on the rotating schedule.  Following both these treatments, he began to see clearer, had more focus for longer distances and could now recognize faces of people down the hall.  (It seems at first that all Chinese faces look alike, so this was a great achievement.) He also moved back three meters and could see the symbols on the eye chart.  Dr Chen had recorded his sight on our first day and now three weeks later, after testing with Dr. Tony, he had doubled his distance for seeing the same symbols.  He noticed that his clarity was better, his color (especially blue and green) were more distinguishable. And his peripheral vision was improved. These are small improvements, but definitely something to be excited about.

 Now that we are home, he continues to improve in small increments.  He attended the Lyons Football home game and barbeque.  For the first time ever he watched the whole game without his binoculars.  He stated he could see the ball and track which players were doing what.  This is a big accomplishment.  On the first session of games with his bowling league, he bowled a 194 – highest score ever for him.  He said he could see the pins and it wasn’t just a big blob of white at the end of the alley.  He could see the picket fence. He could now focus better on hitting the pins left standing.  Although, actually, he didn’t leave many pins standing because he was throwing strikes!

 So now we are in the waiting game.  Stem cells take about nine months to grow.  He hasn’t really noticed anything significant for the last couple of weeks.  Probably at this point the brain is learning to keep up with the changes that are occurring.  And possibly the small increases in time will all at once hit him and he’ll have another break through.  We just continue to have faith and know that more is coming and we must be patient.

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