My Stem Cell Treatment!

[BFritz21]

In February of 2017, my mom told me that my aunt had seen some story on a talk show about a stem cell trial in San Francisco and she told my mom that I should apply. Whenever you hear about stem cell treatments, most people, including myself, just think “spinal cord injuries,” which I have a traumatic brain injury, so how could it help me? Furthermore, I’m missing chunks of my brain that died in the wreck, which they don’t grow back, so this COULDN’T help me, right? Considering all that, I kind of just blew it off.

My aunt kept being persistent, so I finally decided to apply just to make her happy.

I go to apply and see that that the stem cells regenerate to rebuild the parts of the brain that I’m missing and heal the damage parts, so I start to get excited, but there had to be thousands of applicants, so no chance that I’d be selected, right?

I go two months without hearing anything and didn’t even think twice about it again.

Except then they replied to my email just asking questions and wanting more contact info, and then called my mom and requested to do an interview via webcam, which was weird because I told them that I can’t really talk (I sound like Chewbacca when I try), and then requested my medical records, brain scans, and everything else.

I begin to get excited but also try and keep myself in check because there were still a lot of steps, but I was optimistic because everything about this study indicated that I was PERFECT for it.

We request my records from University Hospital, where I was flown to initially because, being only 15, I didn’t have any ID on me, so they guessed my age at 18, and Children’s Hospital, where I was transferred to after I became stable enough to move (two weeks later).

Unfortunately, University had thrown out my medical records because they only keep them for so many years, but I was lucky in that my lawyers had kept all my medical records, so we were good there.

However, the wording was wrong in our request to Children’s Hospital and they just didn’t bother to even tell us that they weren’t going to send my records until we called them to find out what was taking so long.

Luckily, it all got taken care of.

In June, I finish working out at the gym and I'm sitting there waiting for them to finish my protein shake when my phone starts ringing. The caller ID says San Francisco, which is where the study is happening, but I figured they'd call my mom because they know I have troubles speaking, so I answer it expecting it to be some call trying to sell me car insurance or something.

I immediately recognize the voice as the young lady that interviewed me on webcam, and she starts telling me how they received my medical records but asked if she had my correct address because she was going to mail them back, so I get sad knowing that that means that I'm not selected.

But then she tells me how they looked over the records and decided that I'm PERFECT for what they're looking for, just like I've been saying!

They were trying to find doctors near me to evaluate me, but then I was guessing that the next step is just receiving the treatment!

This was still so unbelievable to me but it looked like this had a very real chance of happening!

We go a few weeks without hearing anything, but then they email us and tell us that they had just been closed because of the hurricane and that they were searching for doctors to evaluate me and to give me a physical.

Months go by without us hearing anything, which I know it’s a trial so everything has to be perfect, but it still made me nervous.

However, they finally call us in November and tell us that they found doctors to do the physical and evaluation in Columbus within two weeks and then to just give me the treatment up there, which would be in a month after my initial trip up there for the physical and evaluation.

I’m trying to keep my cool because it’s not even guaranteed that it will work, or how much if it did work, but I couldn’t help but be excited. I remember that my brother and I went up to Applebee’s one night to watch football and hang out, and, as we were sitting there, I said “it’s hard to believe that, in a month, I could be walking in here and we could be talking normal.

He just said, “I know…….. it’s unbelievable,” and it was one of those moments that you just knew he was emotional and had no words for the situation.

Throughout all of this, news stories in the area are doing stories on this, I’m posting it on Facebook, word just spread throughout the area because Northern Kentucky is just one big bubble, and I did things like post on this site, and thousands of people told me that they were thinking about me and praying.

We drive up to Columbus for the evaluation, MRI, and to be evaluated by physical and occupational therapists, which just seemed like technicalities because they already knew everything. It was all pretty pointless and all just seemed like technicalities, so we just had to wait to hear back from them for when they set-up the actual treatment, which should have happened a month later in December.

However, even though I thought it was a done deal, they call me back a week later and tell me that I was disqualified from the study. I was in shock, so I emailed the lady and found out that they disqualified me because I’m missing too much of my brain in too many different places, and they were looking to see damage in just one area of all the injuries so that they could accurately measure the changes that the stem cell treatments made.

I’m destroyed.

I’m bummed for about two weeks and just completely in shell shock, but then I decided to start looking in other countries, in mostly Europe but also in China, to find out if I could get the treatment done somewhere else. I discover that Germany is the most advanced in stem cell treatments, so I start applying to a lot of places over there, but I also apply to this place in China that says it’s the world’s largest stem cell distributor and they also have a center in Hollywood.

I only hear back from one place in Germany, which was a bummer because I figured, with a last name like Fritz, I’d get at least a 30% discount.

I replied to their reply with the information they requested, but then didn’t hear back again.

The stem cell center in China replies with a representative in California and requests all of my medical information and wanted to know a time when the doctor who will perform the actual treatment can call my mother or brother to get the wheelchair rolling.

I’m very excited about this because the trial was unproven and they were only trying to heal the parts that controlled walking, but this place in China should inject multiple areas to cure not only walking, but also speech, memory, and other mental abilities. I’m very excited about the mental abilities part because I was a genius before the wreck and my brain was nowhere near fully developed, so it will be interesting to see if I can be as smart as I would have been if I hadn’t suffered a traumatic brain injury at 15-years-old.

If it makes me able to run, I’m going to start training to run a marathon, and I ALWAYS accomplish what I set my mind to, so count on it!

I love my life as-is and never thought that this was even a possibility, so I’m ok if it doesn’t happen, but I’m very excited about this possibly being a reality and it would be unthinkable to be able to walk again normally, talk normally, think normally, have a great memory again, and just do so many other things normally.

We sent everything at the end of the last work week, so hopefully we’ll hear something this week and we can begin setting everything up.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE PRAYERS! PLEASE KEEP THEM COMING AND I’LL KEEP EVERYONE UPDATED!