Speedy update.

Hello friends and family. Mike on the computer for an update.

Its a bit late at night for cheekiness and there are many topics to cover so I apologise in advance for the lack of creative prose. The plan is to dedicate full posts to the following, however in the interim here is what has been going on.

Great Falls was pretty good. It was a higher intensity week then we are used to back in Brisbane due to the large number of people that we wanted to spend time with during the week. Consequently it was both very enjoyable and quite tiring. I think by the time we left for Nevada we were more tired than when we arrived after our 26 hour trip from Australia.

Thanks very much for all the folks who traveled to come and see us. We enjoyed all the meals, rides, chats, babies and quiet times on the couch.

The fundraiser held on the 21st of May was a major event. I'm hesitant to define it by the number of people who came, amount of donated items, hours of preparation and funds raised as these amounts don't add up to the positive feeling and love that Stacy and I experienced from the event. It was a great success and we are very thankful to everyone who contributed.

Yesterday we flew down to Reno from Great Falls via Seattle. It was a pretty good trip, I think the last big trip was still in our memory so this little one didn't seem too bad. We have our rental car, we are in our hotel suite (both are good) and we are beginning to get our bearings in Reno. We arrived in at the hotel around 10:30pm and were up at 6am to make our first appointment at the clinic.

Today we spent our day at the Sierra Integrated Medical Center. Our description of the day would have been fairly different depending on when you asked us. It feels a little unfair and inaccurate to report my feelings about the day and the clinic now as during the day I felt both more positive and more negative at different times about the whole thing. You can consider that as you read the following.

I don't think we know much more about the big picture of our situation now than we did 24 hours ago. We have more information about some of the details however in terms of knowing how long we will be here, how likely we are to see a positive response for Stacy, what is going on inside Stacy's body we are still pretty much in the dark.

Today we drew a lot of blood and organised a really broad series of tests for that blood. Toxicity, chemical levels, lingering immunisation information, parasite existence, liver function, etc, etc. We did an evaluation of the energetic levels of Stacy's internal organs using key points (some word starting with 'M' should be here) on her hands and feet. We had a long consultation with the big wig Dr. Bruce Fong, D.O. H.M.D. Finally Stacy started some treatment which is standard for all patients at the center - an hour and half drip fluid that is designed to cleans the liver, and 2 injections that do some other stuff.

The plan at the center is to investigate what is happening in Stacy's body systems, to restore balance to her lymphatic, endocrine and immune systems and then see if in that process some negative factor that is damaging her body is removed. A bit of swinging in the dark really however with a condition in which the cause is unknown I guess there aren't many other options.

We are back in tomorrow for some more transfusions and injections.

Reno the town is full of restaurants, casinos and hotels, it is not overly pretty. It is however in a majestic setting. There are two very large snow covered peaks rearing up into the clouds close to town. Apparently the lifts only closed a couple of weeks ago and some people are still hiking up and skiing down, hectic.

We have some photos and plenty more stories to come. Sorry for the limited updates, Stace and I were saying tonight that just getting through the days are using up a lot of energy. We have had 3 pretty big days though - last day in GF, traveling, first day at the clinic. I hope that we will get into a routine soon. Liz does arrive in 2 days for the weekend.

Thanks very much for all the facebook, email, phone and in person love community. It has been great, stand by for a post about one such communication that blew us away - paper airplanes and everything (i'll let the photos do the talking on that one).

We love you.

Mike