health

Between tests, hospital visits and considerable pain, Brandon’s life was very difficult.

continued from page 82

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Mayo Clinic in Minnesota). I spoke
to several contacts who validated
the high-standing reputation of the
institution and I set out to make
contact.
I emailed the doctors explain-
ing my condition, my research on
their trial and my eagerness to fly
to Spain to get their treatment (also
pointing out that I was a patient
at Mayo, which I thought couldn’t
hurt). Almost instantly, I received a
response back.
I went through some formalities
in sending them some of my medical
information and MRIs so they could
validate my condition. After a few
weeks of back and forth, the group
accepted me as a patient, and I was
off to seek approval from my quar-
terbacks at Mayo.
Since I was not a European Union
citizen, I did not qualify for the actu-
al trial, so the understanding was
that I would have to pay cash to get
this done. The efficacy of the treat-
ment also took two visits to the hos-
pital spread out about six months
apart. I took all the trial information
to Mayo and presented my case to
my GI and surgeon. If they had any
reservation about me going, I was
ready to do whatever they instruct-
ed. If they advised against the treat-
ment, I would not go.
They could not have been more
open, excited and encouraging for
me to try this. In fact, my GI had
just in the last year sent a patient
to this group. Because of our rules
and regulations regarding health
care, she could not inform me of this
trial, which is a whole other mat-
ter. Nevertheless, I was booked to go
to Spain in late September of 2016.

SPAIN FOR TREATMENT

My experience in the European
medical system was mesmeriz-
ing. I was considered a “private”
patient instead of a “public” patient
(because of the cash) and was given
an itinerary of preliminary exams
and meetings before the procedure.
The hospital was a beautiful and

very clean facility. I immediately
felt a sense of comfort at how ster-
ile the environment was and how
“normal” the hospital looked in
comparison to ours here in the U.S.
The dress code is a different story.
Many of the female doctors walked
around in blouses, jeans and open-
toe shoes, while the men were very
sharply dressed in nice suits and
ties. I would call it business casual.
I went straight to the front of
every line and experienced some
very different (positive and nega-
tive) approaches to testing and
meetings than here in the U.S. The
hospital cafeteria had better food
and coffee than 99 percent of the
restaurants here! After some shop-
ping and sightseeing, I was ready
for my procedure.
First, I was to have liposuction
performed to extract the adipose
tissue to extract the cells for rep-
lication. This happened first thing
in the morning, and I was put
under general anesthesia while
the plastic surgeon performed the
procedure. The surgical room was
very sterile and had all the modern
equipment inside of hospitals here.
I woke up to my stem cell
surgeon running over in excite-
ment! He had a small vial of about
five million stem cells, and he was
as animated as if this was the first
time he was going to perform the
procedure.
A few hours after the liposuction,
the surgeons injected four million
stem cells into the branch fis-
tula and one million into the main
trunk. Eight weeks later, and back
home in the USA, I visited Mayo to
see the results. My GI and surgeon
were anxious to examine me and
did so together. With confirmation
from my MRI earlier in the day, they
concluded that the results revealed
a closed fistula at the branch!

STEM CELLS WORKED

I went back to Spain in April of
2017 for my second treatment,
which consisted of injecting about

continued on page 86

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March 29 • 2018

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