I'm So Excited!
Last night I discovered that my and thousands of other people's prayers have been answered.
It appears that scientists have been able to grow new organs using the patients own cells. This has been done 6 times successfully with bladders and they are in the process of continuing experimentation on other organs as well. You can find the article here.
If you've never had personal experience with organ transplantation or you have never known anyone who has you can't possibly know what this means.
When my father received a heart transplant it gave him a chance to live another eleven years. I am profoundly grateful for those years but I wonder at the price he had to pay to have them. The toxins he took in the form of anti-rejection med's along with the myriad of other drugs that he took twice a day to counter the effects of those toxins was astounding. It used to take me a full hour to make up his medicines for just one week. Over 60 pills in all he took, every day for eleven years.
We were told when he received the transplant that he was buying himself about 10 years. We were very, very blessed. Knowing what I know now though, if I could go back I honestly don't know if I could ask him to do it again. He got his heart, but he also got cancer, renal failure, diabetes, and a ton of other things on the side.
The transplant medication prolonged his life but destroyed everything inside of him. Every drug has side effects. Try and imagine the side effects of all of the drugs he had to take and then consider how each of them react when taken with all the rest.
My dad was just one of millions world wide facing these types of problems. Consider little Annika, the recipient of not one but two liver transplants, now in need of another. Her parents have been told that she's simply not strong enough to withstand another surgery right now. They are praying she can hold on long enough to regain her strength and that their insurance will hold out to pay for her care. She wants to start Kindergarten in the fall, doing so might cost her her life.
Personally I don't care how it happens. Stem cells, cloning, or the way it seems to be happening now. Having the ability to receive a new heart, kidney, lung, whatever that was grown by your own body would be the equivalent to winning the lottery. No anti-rejection medicines, no side effects. A real chance at life.
I am so excited!
Donations are accepted at The American Society of Transplanation.
It appears that scientists have been able to grow new organs using the patients own cells. This has been done 6 times successfully with bladders and they are in the process of continuing experimentation on other organs as well. You can find the article here.
If you've never had personal experience with organ transplantation or you have never known anyone who has you can't possibly know what this means.
When my father received a heart transplant it gave him a chance to live another eleven years. I am profoundly grateful for those years but I wonder at the price he had to pay to have them. The toxins he took in the form of anti-rejection med's along with the myriad of other drugs that he took twice a day to counter the effects of those toxins was astounding. It used to take me a full hour to make up his medicines for just one week. Over 60 pills in all he took, every day for eleven years.
We were told when he received the transplant that he was buying himself about 10 years. We were very, very blessed. Knowing what I know now though, if I could go back I honestly don't know if I could ask him to do it again. He got his heart, but he also got cancer, renal failure, diabetes, and a ton of other things on the side.
The transplant medication prolonged his life but destroyed everything inside of him. Every drug has side effects. Try and imagine the side effects of all of the drugs he had to take and then consider how each of them react when taken with all the rest.
My dad was just one of millions world wide facing these types of problems. Consider little Annika, the recipient of not one but two liver transplants, now in need of another. Her parents have been told that she's simply not strong enough to withstand another surgery right now. They are praying she can hold on long enough to regain her strength and that their insurance will hold out to pay for her care. She wants to start Kindergarten in the fall, doing so might cost her her life.
Personally I don't care how it happens. Stem cells, cloning, or the way it seems to be happening now. Having the ability to receive a new heart, kidney, lung, whatever that was grown by your own body would be the equivalent to winning the lottery. No anti-rejection medicines, no side effects. A real chance at life.
I am so excited!
Donations are accepted at The American Society of Transplanation.
posted by Andria @4:26 PM
4 Comments:
Wow! That is such great news!
That is absolutely unreal. Who would have thought...
I saw the news an thought it was exciting too cos I have a son with neuro probomes and this is amzing news for people like him.
good stuff... enjoyed reading that.
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