Movin' on, movin' up.

It is clearly time to write with an update as people are beginning to send emails asking if things are ok. Excuse the tardiness.

We went to Reno.

Visited Lake Tahoe and Virginia City.

Liz came to stay.                                                                              

Kelly came to stay.

Shannon and Tawnya also came to visit however the camera must have been on charge that week. Sorry.

Stacy got a lot of injections, but kept on smiling, most of the time.

We received a lot of encouragement.

 

 

And finished up the treatment at the clinic a week or so ago.

As you would expect Stacy made as many good impressions at the clinic as she did facebook friends.

We are now back in Montana resting up and preparing for the trip home. Relaxing on the deck, hanging out with friends, rehabilitating small animals and driving fast cars. You know how it is.

We are heading home to Australia on the 11th of August - next week. We have mixed feelings about heading home as we will miss all the very important people over here in the states. I don't think we are able to sum up this trip easily and it will take some time for everything that has happened to download and make sense. We are hopeful that Stacy's condition will improve with the ongoing treatment as we wait along with all of you to see what happens.

Thanks again for all the love and support that has been sent our way, it makes a great difference to our days.

Now on to our next adventure.

'Anybody can run on a fine day'

Despite the set backs, regardless of the obstacles, and in the face of what almost feels like systemic, organised resistance Stacy and I have finally found a good non-chain breakfast restaurant. Oh yeah!

The Stone House Cafe is a top notch little restaurant with great food, relaxed garden style setting and apparently divinely inspired customers.

After having a great meal there last week, this morning we headed back out to the cafe with Deb for a Sunday morning breakfast. Excellent. After we sat down and ordered we noticed a couple of blokes who had finished their meal a few tables over. I noticed them because the waiter said "hang loose and enjoy the shade fellas". Sweet US vocab.

We ordered and enjoyed, relaxed, slowly savoured our meal and soaked up the excellent Sunday morning - being outside has become an appreciated novelty for us after nearly two months sitting in the clinic getting treated.

After we had finished eating one of the blokes from the 'hang loose' table made his way over to our table and asked if he could sit down. Jeff introduced himself and said that he noticed that Stacy is a bit ill at the moment. Jeff is a 50 year old Reno local who works as a photographer. He has eyeglasses and likes to wear a baseball hat on his Sunday morning.

While talking to Jeff we found out that he had Lyme disease and ten years ago he experienced a range of symptoms similar to Stacy's current condition. He said that he saw us walk in and it reminded him of the way he used to walk around. He lost his voice and his ability to swallow effectively at the height of his symptoms.

This morning Jeff was a healthy looking and highly functioning breakfast eating human. He really wanted to come over and tell Stacy that she needs to continue fighting, believing and participating in her treatment. She can get her solution and she can be healthy again. Jeff was a marathon runner and a firefighter and he said during his illness his mantra became that "anybody can run on a fine day". I took this to mean that its the people who keep running when the wind blows up and the rain sets in who make a difference in the world. Jeff told Stacy that its not firemen who follow their training and fight fires who are heroes, its Stacy who keeps battling everyday, and insists on living her life and eating her cafe breakfast who is a hero.

It really was a divine experience for us. We are very grateful to Jeff for coming over and injecting himself and his story into our day.

As we were walking back to the car Stacy said to me "Maybe that was God saying shut up and start believing". Meeting Jeff was a great influence on Stacy and gave a real boost to all of us as we move towards the next phase of our treatment.

Great breakfast. Loved it. Independent restaurants people, the way forward.

Thanks for all the love,

Mike and Stacy

Bailing out, digging deep, shaping up, battling on, pushing through and getting it together

G'day out there in Stacy land.

I hope all is well with you at the moment.

This week we are in Reno, Nevada. Not surprised are you, well I guess we aren't either. As I write we are at the end of our 7th week here in Reno attending the Sierra Integrative Medical Center. We will complete this week of treatment and then decide how much of next week we will spend down here. Yesterday we thought it would only be a couple of days of next week however after today we may be looking at the whole week. The situation in regards to duration of treatment has been in flux for the last month or so.

Today was a rough day, however that isn't totally representative of our time here. Whilst the overall experience has been tough most of the days themselves haven't been overly challenging.

Stacy's physical condition:
Her blood seems to be much healthier, less immune hyperactivity, less dehydration and oxidative damage (related to chemicals in her body) to her red blood cells. Better liver function, however there is more improvement needed with this. Her allergic reactions seem to be much less active as well. Her recent vital capacity (lung function) test seemed to show that she is stable in this area - we will take stable, stable is just fine at the moment.

Her speech and total body motor control seem to be continuing to progress in line with the last 18 months. It is hard for us to assess this really well, however we feel like most movement tasks are harder now than they were when we left home in May.

Stacy's mental and emotional condition:
I'm just a young man with a less than extensive experience in the world. Stacy is by far the bravest and toughest nut that I have met. She finds herself in an intensely painful and scary situation and yet she is constantly trying to protect the rest of us around her from the pain and fear. She fights much of the mental and emotional battle by herself. Stacy has never been shy to ask for help and is keen to share the load of the experience however she is constantly aware of protecting others as well.

On Monday she encouraged me to buy a piece of pizza for a homeless man who she has seen wondering the streets of Reno. I was quite resistant to the idea though shyness or fear or something. I did however end up getting the pizza slice and drove over, found the man and gave him the dinner. He was very happy and appreciative. It really was a divine moment. Impossible to recapture through description, it was intensely emotional for both of us.

Stacy is still a wonderful person despite the arduous nature of your life at the moment.

The challenge is harder now than it ever has been. We will continue to face it every day. We are hopeful for the next few months.

Stacy loves you all and hopes you are all making the most of your days. Send her some love in the comments here or on facebook or however you normally keep in touch.

Lots of love

Mike

Mind Meld~

If I were french fries you would be ketchup.
If I were a meat pie you would be my crust.
You're the flip to my flop,  the ying to my yang.

You are my favorite part.

Some people look a lifetime for what we have.  I love you more today then yesterday.

WTF - What The Fong.

That's What The 'Dr.' Fong for all of you who aren't in Reno with us.

This afternoon Debi was on a roll talking about when Stacy's cure from MND sets the neurological world on fire and she goes on to write a book about her experiences and then this book gets picked up by Hollywood and made into a feature film. Just quietly I think Debi liked Julia Roberts as a candidate to play her.

Stacy and I carried this on and were talking about who would play all the parts in the movie of her fight with Motor Neuron Disease - Gambling in Reno, a high stakes medical adventure. The highlight of this is when we decided that the guy who plays the Asian gang boss type guy in 'The Hangover' would be best suited to play the head doctor here at the Medical Centre, Dr. Bruce Fong DO, HMD. WTF

What the Fong?!

I'm proud of us for still having a great time and laughing about something everyday. We have had some hard days over the last year and a half, this week included however I don't think there has been a full day in which Stacy and I haven't been able to laugh together. Plenty of half days like that but maybe not any full days. We are blessed by that.

Righto so here is what is going on. Stacy's blood test for Lyme disease came back last week and it was positive. This means that there is a bacteria infecting Stacy's cells that is very hard to kill and causes lots of problems. Many people at this clinic have Lyme disease. This clinic seems to have worked out a way to kill Lyme disease, we think they will do that for Stacy. This could be extremely good.

Other things that have been identified are that she has some heavy metals in her body and a range of food and environmental allergies. The clinic also has a long history of successfully dealing with these issues.

Her treatment at the moment continues to involve daily detox IVs at the clinic, plenty of oral supplements, a battery of subcutaneous and inter-muscular medicine injections delivered both at the clinic and by Dr. Neild at home. She is also continuing with 'the push' which is the nightly injection of medicine that induces some kind of major immune system reaction characterised by shivers and shakes, muscle tightness and intense ache and a fever. She also intermittently during the week does some massage, some lymphatic drainage therapy and some liver cleanse theory.

There is a new therapy on the horizon which they call neural therapy. This involves a series of acupuncture style (along meridian lines) injections of medicine into her lower back and legs. This is designed to open up the energy pathways for her legs and improve the ability of her nerves to synapse. It will involved around 100 subcutaneous injections during the session.

The treatment continues to be hard work physically, emotionally and mentally. I've been working harder this week at being excited about the therapy rather than being skeptical of the therapy, its been good.


The theory that we are working with is that by dealing with all the imbalances that are present in Stacy's body - dissfuctional liver, hyperactive allergic reactions, confused immune system, heavy metals and Lyme disease - she will be in a good state of general health. Once all these blocks to healthy function are removed then her body will be given its best chance to holt or reverse the degeneration that she has experienced over the last 16 months.

Currently we haven't seen any signs of that reverse yet. We do believe that this clinic will be able to successfully deal with everything they have found. The Fonger hopes to see some clinical (functional) change before we leave in the next couple of weeks. We think that we are in the right place for this to happen.

Tawnya has gone home to Great Falls. Shannon one of Stacy's college room mates, bridesmaids and general sister from another mister has come and gone. The presence of these intimate friends has been excellent. Thanks girls, nice work.

Sorry that you have to put up with me writing instead of Stacy. She is still firing along with wonderful moments of Stacyness (caring for and encouraging the other patients at the clinic, achieving and verbalising moments of uplifting perspective, humorously negotiating and disarming the potentially embarrassing, uncomfortable and disheartening aspects of her daily life and making the people around her feel as though they are uniquely special and worthwhile) she just doesn't have the emotional energy available to write them up on this blog.

Lots of love to you all. Keep it coming right back over.

Mike and Stacy

Time for an update

G'day folks.

Its Sunday evening after 2 and a half weeks here in Reno. It has been a pretty nice weekend. Unlike last Saturday this week Stacy woke up feeling pretty good and refreshed. We have had a couple of nice relaxing days enjoying the excellent weather, eating out and resting up. Stacy has punched a 2 top quality afternoon naps, we think they are pretty important for her to catch up on the week of treatment action.

At noon today the T Ray, Junior Klein, the sweetest young lady ever to come out of Great Falls high Tawnya Gilchrist arrived in town. Tawnya is Stacy's great mate from back in the school days as is going to stay with us for a week and help ease the experience for us all.

We are excited to have Tawnya in town for the next week.

Last week was a tiring week. We ramped up the treatment intensity which was hard on Stacy's body due to the induced fever reaction that she experienced nightly. We are still waiting for some test results to come back however we are getting into the rhythm of the treatment and expect a similar week this week. We still feel like there is value in the treatment and are hopeful that after we have survived our time here that Stacy's body will be able to do some healing on its own free from toxins, pathogens and whatever else is disrupting her cells.

Thanks for all the love and care that has been sent our way.

Best wishes, Stacy and Mike

 "Now get out there and make a difference"

Treatment - Day 7

G'day friends, family, fans and followers.

It is Friday evening, the end of a week and the end of our 7th day of treatment at the SIMC in Reno. Overall we are going good, we've got one brave girl on our hands here people.

The first few days of our treatment focused on detoxification of Stacy's body, with extra attention on her liver. It was also a time of testing - blood, excretions and lung function.
Some results from this time are:
-Stacy's Liver is not able to keep up with its filtering job, so her red blood cells and her plasma have accumulated various imperfections.
-She has some small tube like bacteria in her blood called spirochetes. These are linked to a range of diseases - fire up google if you are keen.
-Her immune system is not functioning effectively. In some aspects it is not reacting to destroy antigens as it should, and in other situation it is hyper sensitive to some antigens and is over reacting and wearing itself out creating a response.

-There are still tests out for parasites, viruses and diseases.
-Her vital capacity (functional lung volume) is at the same level as it was a month ago.

The second phase of the treatment started yesterday and it is full on. At the end of each day of getting IV treatments, pro neural system and anti virus injections Stacy is given an injection of something that is designed to reset her immune system. It generates an intense fever that so far (2 nights) has only spiked as high as 102 degrees F, however we are only at Level 1 of 10.

It is a pretty rough ride. It takes about 45mins from the time of injection to start and then it starts quick. So far it has been characterised by 45mins of extreme cold feelings coupled with body stiffness and shakes that rattle her teeth. Then it fires up a fever for about 2 hours that leaves her exhausted and sore. In the morning she is very stiff and moving is harder and more painful than usual. It is called the Push and most of the patients here get it. Stacy will have it everyday while she is here. At this stage we expect she will have 25 pushes over the next 4 and a half weeks.

Now Stacy has never delivered a child however I get the sense it might sound something like the moans, groans and snapped instructions that we have heard over the last couple of evenings.


The Push coupled with a range of detoxification techniques are designed to kill bacteria and infections, and reset her immune system so that it can find and recognise the cause of her MND symptoms and correct the problem.


That is the plan at the moment and time will tell how effective it is for Stacy. Similar plans seem to be very effective for other people here.


Other stuff:

Check out this excellent effort regarding the Great Falls fund raiser over at Cindy's blog. http://cindycieluch.com/blog/?p=4891
Love your work Cindy, well done.

Some of Stacy's close mates are coming down one at a time to do some nursing. This is good, we've worked out that we can use one extra set of hands when it is one of Stacy's intimates who can get in on all the gritty aspects of our current situation. We are looking forward to visits from these girls.


As I said overall we are going good. We feel like we are doing something, and that something will be good for Stacy's body. Thanks for all the love.

Mike and Stacy