One MS patient’s ‘starting line’ for stem cell therapy

By Richard M. Cohen

image courtesy Richard Cohen

I am one of twenty struggling every day with multiple sclerosis to be included in an innovative, phase one stem cell clinical trial at the Tisch MS Research Center of New York. Now theres a mouthful. Please let me explain. Many of us read tidbits about cell therapy and think it simply is space-age medicine that will be launched in the future.

In fact, we are at the starting line now, and the race has begun. A phase one trial tests safety. The group is small, and all are treated with the real thing. No placebos, sugar pills. The trial tests autologous cells, which mean our own. That eliminates rejection and alters risk. No new medical procedure comes risk-free, but the dangers are minimal. The stem cells are pulled from bone marrow harvested from our breast bones. Sounds hideous. It is not.

In this trial, the stem cells are infused directly into the spinal column. Nope. Not painful at all. Then we watch and wait. Results, if there are to be any, can take many months to show themselves. This particular procedure has never been used before. I was the first in the group to be treated, making me the first in the world to have this done. For more than forty years, I have lived with an illness that left no room for hope. Suddenly, that has changed, though change does not necessarily come easily.

The expectation game is dangerous. No one really knows what to expect from this experiment. My doctor makes that point over and over. Yet it is hard to control the fantasies that inevitably pop into my head. The possibility of restoring at least some vision when I have been legally blind for years is enticing, to say the least. I used to run and race or simply hike up country hills. Now I hobble on a cane. I am lucky if I can stay on my feet walking two city blocks. The possibility of restored mobility takes my breath away.

I know better than to go too far down these roads in my mind, but that visual journey is unavoidable. Maybe that is okay. Hope is a funny thing. We need something to hope for. Any doctor will tell you attitude is an important factor in fighting a disease. I have learned the power of remaining positive. We need fuel to keep the engine running. Those flights of fancy, imagining we can be better than we are, to some extent can become self-fulfilling prophecies.

This is an exciting period in the history of medicine. That probably has been said throughout the ages. Science does not stand still. No one can see around the bend. That may be what makes hope possible, the idea that there is something just out of sight that is revolutionary and good, just waiting for us to get there.

Richard M. Cohen writes Journey Man, an independent blog, also carried by The Huffington Post. Cohen is the author of Blindsided, published in 2004, which chronicled his battles with multiple sclerosis and cancer, and Strong at the Broken Places in 2008, both New York Times Best Sellers. Cohens latest book, I Want to Kill the Dog, was published in 2012. Cohen is married to journalist, Meredith Vieira, with whom he has three grown children.

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One MS patient's 'starting line' for stem cell therapy