The Last 10 Pounds of Pain - X39 and Me

http://Www.x39longbeach.Eventbrite.com 

For those who happen to be aware of my new and improved walking phase🤓 a most exciting part has been the discovery of the LifeWave X39 patch which is what helped me lose those “last 10 pounds of pain” and got me walking once again.  

This Saturday the 26th I am attending the LifeWave  3 hour conference in Long Beach to learn more about this product and how I can share it with others after the impact it’s had on my life. The link for this event is below, so please let me know if you’d like to attend so we can all meet up once we are there! 

My X39 Story 

This is my story through years of chronic pain, from international wedding photographer and VP of my mother’s  organization Rebuilding America’s Warriors RAW (free reconstructive surgeries for Veterans) to an accident, a wheelchair, and tables which violently turned in the most unexpected, & ironic, of ways. 

You see my condition was diagnosed as a ‘suicide disease’ of my spine. Great name for instilling optimism. After over 20 spine surgeries and procedures, labor-type contractions in my spinal cord, and 6 years in bed 90% of the time, every waking breath was spent loving my four children and husband with every ounce of humanity I had left. 

After exhausting every option possible in the realm of western medicine, much which kept me alive due to pain levels technically rated on the McGill Scale of 1-10, as 1,000, a dear friend recommended stem cells. 

I thought it was snake oil. Until I underwent the stem cell transplant, which resulted in the complete eradication of spinal contractions, and an 80% reduction in pain levels. 

I had a life back. 

And I was grateful. 

However, I was still in the wheelchair outside of the house and  limited to 1-2 hours of sitting before my spine gave out or legs slowly came to halted crawl. 

I felt guilty wanting more.

My mantra of praying for my suffering to one day have a purpose or meaning, revealed itself upon establishing Veterans In Pain V.I.P. Facilitating Alternative solutions for Veterans suffering from chronic pain. 

The irony is, that it was through this work and exposure to some of the most humblingscientific minds in the field of Interventional medicine, that I quite literally became the guinea pig for solutions brought to our program, before they could be considered as tools for our Veterans. 

In steps LifeWave. 

While attending a physician training symposium in San Diego, I roll in, and immediately gravitate to a table hosted by friendly inviting faces, explaining a new patch technology. Little did I know that our initial 10 minute conversation would culminate in the most unexpected discovery.  

After placing an X-39 patch on my spine, I went on my way. Sitting in the symposium. Grabbed a few more patches, and returned the next day for lectures. With a newly placed patch, it was 1pm when I sat down, and I sat. And I sat. Still surprised I did not sense the usual need to lay flat every couple hours, it was not until well after dinner at 9:30pm that I knew there was some special to the patch. 

This small yet mighty LifeWave X-39 patch is a circular, sheer, thumb-sized adhesive application through which a whole new world of possibilities was being  revealed. 

Similar to how I felt prior to my systemic stem cell transplant, I asked myself howcould something so simple ever in any way shape or cellular form, even begin to address conditions so all encompassing? I ‘must’ know what I’m talking about. Who could possibly convince me that something outside the traditional box of all things medicine, practiced by white coated physicians marinating in over 20 years of education in the field. And they don’t believe in it. Or, already do not understand the systemic inflammatory nature of chronic pain to realize how much sense it could actually make. 

Fast forward to October 6 of 2020 at the  OrthoBiologic symposium. Reps from LifeWave gave a presentation and the science behind it was explosive to me, and made complete sense. 

So, I signed up simply because it allowed me to purchase the monthly order at the wholesale price. Plus there was this 90 day moneyback guarantee. 

I wore a new patch every morning and took it off at night before I went to sleep and threw it away. Then I put on a new patch the next morning and so on. I tried not to think about the results at all, because with anything I try, the ultimate objective is to see if it works on me so we might offer an additional tool when addressing the needs of the veterans in our program. So many have to wait for their procedures, and suffer until they can schedule etc. so I’m pretty much the guinea pig as far as anything we include in our treatment protocols.

That said, within a few weeks I noticed an exponential increase in my energy, mental clarity, as well as overall pain relief especially within my spine. I started not needing my chair as much around the house and started going out to the mailbox to get the mail each day as it just seemed like it was such a possible thing to simply do, something I used to take for granted LOL but for so long I had not been able to take for granted again, even with the vast improvements I have experienced overall due to my systemic stem cell transplant.  

By Thanksgiving, we are going to El Capitan in Santa Barbara, and camping in cabins type atmosphere with hiking paths, and went for a slow but steady 20 minute walk with Don. This was huge and the major turning point in realizing there is something magnitude magnitude within the patch that I should look into further. So this is when I really started paying attention.

By Christmas, my gate had increased and fluidity and my ability and fortitude to walk and a moderate gate with the kids to look at Christmas lights had increased to 30 minutes. Still stunted inflow, with pausing to look at lights, and could not go out alone, but every day these types of improvements we’re cracking like Easter eggs. 

Fast forward to middle-end of January, and realized I had not used the stair lift since Christmas, and deciding it was time and Don & Joe removed it, with much fanfare, from the house. 

Around the middle of the month, I’m estimating here, I began “having to and driven to” going on evening walks with Don, each ranging about 30 minutes in length. Every once in a while he would need to come back and pick me up, so we started walking in smaller circles. 

But the impetus each night to do so and energy to do it with was consistent. 

Finally, end of February 2021, I  could not resist the impetus to go out on the evening walk, alone. To much chagrin from Don, due to his protective nature, but the feeling was overwhelming that I had to try to do this, alone. 

So, I opted to bring Blue Belle, my service dog who pulled my chair for 81/2 years, with me. And there she was, on the end of a leash being walked, by me. Needless to say, she was a bit confused, but off we went. And went. And went. 

My gate was as fluid as before my initial accident which led me down the surgical rabbit hole over and over again. I felt almost no pain. Every ounce of my being felt awake, almost intoxicatingly so. So I took a selfie video to simply document this moment for fear that it may never happen again. 

How could it? After almost 9 years, and quite literally a life-saving stem cell transplant, and the blessing of having my personal recovery manifest itself in service to those who deserve it most, I should have been convinced in that moment that this was my new normal. This Science is science, cause and effect, hypothesis tested and research-approved. 

Yet I still sit here today, in awe, that a month ago I sold my mobility van and watched it drive away as the film of tar on my handicap plates dusted left its film on my hands. That there is a “normal person” car in our garage now, and I can park in a normal person space. 

I have used nothing else in tandem to the patch, except my remaining intrathecal pump which I have since reduced in concentration in preparation for extraction by July. Daily pain medications sit in my nightstand wondering if I forgot their name or if I ever really cared that they exist. The walking shoes my son gave me for Christmas once were pink and now a shade of grey. I can now stroll in hand with my husband, look into my eyes just like our wedding day. My children see a mother vaguely reminiscent of a past, 

who stands for more than she ever could without the challenges she’s had.

So, as this all sinks in, that a little patch that could, has produced results I never thought 

could be, I share my story because it’s here for those in theworld of pain who have prayed each day to live a life for those they love, like me. 

LifeWave X-39 Stem Cell Generator Patch

To learn more/order visit 

LifeWave.com/bensko 

Micaela Bensko

 

Join me this Saturday June 26th as this pay it forward journey continues🦋 Be sure to DM so we can meet up as a group and can introduce ourselves to one another.  Register Here:

http://Www.x39longbeach.Eventbrite.com

Flying in the Era of Covid - What It’s really like -

modifyremoveorganizepost follow up

My son Joe and I had to fly from LA to Reno for family support. This was our first time traveling in the era of Covid with many changes noticed and odd surrealities in the air. Follow our journey a the fly on the wall, with a mask. 

What I Have Learned through the Challenge of Pain

WHAT I HAVE LEARNED THROUGH THE CHALLENGE OF PAIN

Well, I at last have a new, functioning and looks-like-I'm-legit laptop making it simpler to update here! No, not really. It's been the wildest ride since I last posted a year ago, one I should have been posting about, stem cell recoveries are a funny thing. First, you have to tell everyone how AMAZING they are, because they are. Then you go through the 9-12 month recovery period and all of a sudden, life is SO much more doable! I used to say, if they could just take the pain away, I can deal with being in a wheelchair. Just get me out of this much pain. If you've followed at all, you've surely read the part about my spinal contractions equalling labor contractions, every ten to fifteen minutes around the clock for weeks or months, while every contraction brought with it butcher knives that seem to shovel the muscles off my femur bones followed by the shooting of boiling icycles down the legs to the toes, that stayed at a cool 42 degrees F. F-f-fUN stuff! That's jsut when I was in a "flare". Otherwise, it was just a brewing cesspool of fire and daggers circling the vertrebrae dancing up and down the spine until I did someting stupid, like sit for more than five minutes, and it would start all over again.

That said. No small violins, only electric guitars, people!

But, once I reached what they called my new baseline of pain levels, after a year of the rollercoaster after effects of feeling like Wonder Woman on the upswing and Frankenstein's daughter on the down, as well as physical therapy (a MUST), I sat back and looked at what was, compared to what was now.

It became a confusing thing to see.

I felt absolutely selfish.

I wanted more.

It was like offering a child a Vanilla cone, only for them to complain it wasn't Vanilla Bean.

I've already given you guys a taste of what was. What was "now" was EONS from where I was. I could now sit for almost two hours at a time, which meant going to a movie with my hubby AND a drink (medications doesn't allow for much more than one, so that was good, fit into my time frame). This was a miracle! But what was even more of a miracle, was that the spinal contractions which took six years of my life from me, my children, my husband and family, had completely stopped. Not one contraction since my first stem cell transplant on June 28, 2017. Not one. That alone should have had me kneeling at the feet of my physician. Which I actually did, on my second round of stem cells.

That's right. I did it again. Nonetheless, this time, on Halloween. Made sense to me, seeing's that I was Frankenstein's Daughter and all.

My second stransplant was exactly like the first, but this time, it involved a second phase, and this is why:

No matter what improvements I experienced, there was still one issue which was not addressed during my first transplant, a situation of increasing pain levels L4-5 to Sacrum discs, which had begun derailing all of the progress we had achieved so far. My lower lumbar levels were now screaming after 45 minutes of sitting. Yes, my contractions were gone, so I should have been thrilled! But pain is pain. Anyone who lives in chronic pain, no matter the levels, understands that pain is like a magnet to the brain and becomes all you can think about. How you wish it wasn’t there. So, I used my tools of distraction, learning new things, writing, not overdoing things, but still nothing could grant me the serenity of knowing the things I cannot change. The decision was made. I would go for number two.

The original protocol involves the actual stem cell transfusion (this particular protol uses hundreds of millions of cells at one time, rather than tens, multiple times) then, intramuscular injections of stem cells made into a "paste" injected along the spine. However, during my second transplant, the doctor used a live flouroscpoy (an in real time video x-ray) to watch exactly where the phase two of stem cell paste injections will this time, enter INTO, the vetrebral spaces.In particular, one with an artificial disc! The space which housed my artificial disc at L4-5 had caused what happens to many patients over time, it adds so much pressure to the levels below it, that not only is the artificial disc level compromised by blinding pain, the levels below it grow increasingly painful as well.

So here I am, it is the beginning of February, three months out, and my perspective has changed. Instead of expecting to be who I was. I am now learning that it is ok to be who I am now, or whatever the next year should bring. The second transplant dramatically improved these levels, L4-5 is but a distant memory, but the lower levels are proving to be more of a beast that we expected. I learned to walk again a year after my first transplant, yet limitations only allow for this within our home, short spurts with sofa at arms length. I've tried going out without my chair, but dont' get too far, and have realized I'm more of a snail that a mom who needs to "get sh*t done!". I have learned that even the most magical of sciences, has its limitation when there has been a level of mechanical damage that has been done. Finally, I can truly say, I am ok with this. This is not giving in, it is opening up to whatever will be and all the possibilities that could be, good or “bad”. This has taken a long time to get to.

Life may never be what it was, or what at first I so desperately hoped it would be again. It is ok for some things to be what they are, and to find the beauty in what is. I have learned to live a life with more blessings than I could have ever experienced had I not been hurt. For the last seven years I have been able to be home to watch my children grow rather than constantly traveling to shoot destination weddings and portraits of those wealthier than God (not that that's a bad thing, it just wasn't being with my kids), and being too busy editing all week to help them with homework, or problems, or simply lay on the bed while all four of them circling as a band around me, singing and playing our favorite songs - mine being, whatever my children played and the songs they sang. My husband has unearthed within him a patience and an empathy not just for myself ,but for others facing challenges, as have our children. Our children understand that a' life challenge' can be an opportunity to reframe what it means to live one's life. They have garnered,over time, an unyeilding urge to create change in our world by witnessing how misunderstood their mother could be by others. They understand the challenges a life challenge can create and that we never truly know what is going on behind closed doors. Also, whatever upturns one’s live is a life challenge, and that the processing of it is pretty much universally the same. That everyone has a story no one else has lived, and yet it's everyone's story at once. I have learned how many fragile, diminutive moments of joy I bypassed for so many years becasue I was moving too quickly to notice them. I have realized the joy in taking out the trash and stopping because a ray of sunlight has turned a simple leaf into an xray version of itself, and having it be the highlight of one's day. I have gotten to know a squirrel in our backyard and named it Rocky. It has many names, as we have many neighbors, to me, he's mine. I have learned of the devotional love and bond which can grow between a service dog and her handler. How one animal can make a very scary world, once agian, make sense. I have learned that not everyone will understand what I have been through, but in the end, I don't need nor expect them to. I only offer hope that one day all will experience the empathy we have so humbly received. I have realized that not everyone needs to be your friend, and most have not truly been one at all. That when your world crashes, it is those who carry you through the flames that define friendship as though it were etched in stone by God. I have realised that if every parent could spend every moment of their time with their children, you would see them as people, not kids. That there is no place you would rather be than exactly where you are, even though others may wish they never saw where you are, at all. I have seen colors on raindrops and am convinced there are many more than we have been told. I learned to love football because of a story I saw about what it can take to face a challenge and rise above. Go Seahawks! But most of all, I have realized that the meaning of life can be so simple. For me, it has come down to loving and connecting with others, and meaning every word I say. If I cannot answer the phone, I will wait until I call you back with my world aside and at your feet. I have learned that the worst thing I can do another is to place expectations, it's like making them take a test they couldn't study for if they tried. That no one should ever be expected to truly know every thought or feeling you have, or be expected to respond to something they have never lived. I have learned that everything that I have become after my accident, good or bad, has happened because something shattered. A life exploded, everything I knew, every way I knew how to live went up in a puff of smoke. And yet, here I am. Rising from ashes does an incredible thing, turning into somehing akin to tempered steel, the only thing on earth that endures fire only to come out stonger than before; that just because life is now different,doesn’t mean it isn’t the life you are supposed to lead.

So, as I meter my sitting time, and wheel with Blue from A to B, as I do homework with my children or breathe in love of a man who has risen through his own shattered house, and as I continue to meet others who's pain is lifted for even a minute just because someone else has been there, too, I etch this life in stone, as my own.

Wounds of Santa Fe - A Mother’s Reflection on Fear

As the mother of a high school student advocate for change in safety standards within our schools with nerves of steel and complete and total refusal to be restricted by the ire bullies bring,  I sit today wrestling with unbridled heartbreak at the 22nd school shooting to occur in our country this year alone, and vulnerably ask other mothers - has this excruciating wave caused you to consider home schooling?  Is this a weakness we may bend to, or is this a brave and empowering option? We homeschool our youngest as this practice is necessary to fit her learning style, with the intention of her returning to public school once she is able. But at this point, my maternal instincts are tearing me apart as to what could or should be a decision or response relative to the threat? 

As a 70’s child, I feel physically ill, that our children will never know that feeling of freedom and safety. 

I often wonder if the internet and social media has truly been gasoline on the proverbial fire that has historically threaded the high school experience. Gun control is one thing, Mental Illness is another, at times they combine. These Mixed with social toxicity is the perfect storm it seems we find ourselves watching while in denial that embers travel. 

To what degree is our fear vindicated by refusing to disturb the status quo? Keeping our children in a fishbowl at the carnival so a roque can claim his prize. 

Upon my return from NYC in April with our youngest for her 13th birthday, a ritual we have celebrated with each of our four children through the years (this one being our last) a lovely flight attendant, who lives near our town, and I struck a confidence and bonded over the current state of our schools and our children’s safety, my daughter Cassie’s part (14 at the time) in charging forward with her peers in leading a movement for change. Only upon decent did she share quietly that the pilot of our flight lost his 14 year old daughter to Parkland. As we landed, the father, no longer a pilot in my eyes you traditionally want to thank for a safe arrival, exited the cockpit. This was the first time in my life that loss was larger than any life, and the life that was his was gone. A beautiful human being vacant in grief, a ghost wandering to find his soul. Because that is what our children become. Our soul.  I wanted to scream for him, dig into the freshly layered soil above his self so oxygen could reach his lungs. Then he was gone. The wounds so freshly carved left a trail my site could not contain. 

With 22 shootings this year alone, 12 dead today and 10 injured in Santa Fe, TX today, who is to say our fears are invalid or incomparable to the possibility ours could be next? Golden Valley, Valencia High and others have already received numerous investigated threats. 

In looking at the beautiful young lives, each a perfect reflection of who could easily be mistaken for our now 15 year old and her friends; The long hair and porcelain faces of a generation of girls aching to recreate the aesthetic of a gentler time with voices launching to thread the canvas of a status quo. These images strike with the unbridled optimism and confidence of a generation so acutely aware of the crosshairs painted in invisible ink. The ones adults too often refuse to see in the dark. Because then they would be real. 

I think I have finally seen them. The crosshairs. Because I’m just so tired of aging the light to where we are expected to focus. It is this that frightened me most of all. 

Tips for Traveling After Spine Surgery

A friend just asked for some advice as she will be traveling to Hawaii with her family after a spine surgery. These are my thoughts after having lived & learned!

🌺Call the airline prior to departure and let them know you’ll need early boarding due to your condition, or if you have a service dog. 

🌺If you have a long layover somewhere, request access (may need to purchase entry) to the airline’s lounge so you can lay down if needed. 

🌺You can request that an airline employee meet you at check-in with a wheelchair to escort you to the gate and on-board so you don’t have to walk. I’d suggest an aisle seat closer to the lavatory so you can more easily access the restroom when needed. 

🌺Let the airline also know prior - so that in case of an emergency you may need assistance exiting the plane- if you can manage a flight of 8-10 stairs without assistance. If not, they will need to have a wheelchair lift or ramp ready for you upon arrival. Especially in Hawaii,  as many exit the plane via a stairway. 

🌺 At the hotel, request a room closer to the elevator to prevent unnecessary walking. (Exercise is one thing, pain is another!)

🌺 You may not be able or willing to go out as easily if you’re having a tough time. I always request a mini fridge when traveling and stock it with food - especially breakfast supplies, as mornings can be tricky. It also saves a ton of money when the kids want cereal at midnight! 

🌺Sitting for long periods is going to be difficult. I bring at least 2 squishy pillows (not a brand, just pillows that are firm yet squishy). Not really feather pillows, more of mashable tempurpedic type so it can contort and still support, so I can adjust positions to make myself comfortable in the airplane seat and during travel in general, even in the car! You can curl your knees up and cushion the armrest with them, or pad the window area etc. 

🌺Prescription Lidoderm Patches help in distributing subdermal lidocaine to help anesthetize the area. 

🌺Drink water! Your spine depends on being hydrated to heal and traveling is exceedingly dehydrating. 

🌺By the pool, make sure any lounge chairs lean back at least 45 degrees and beware of the classic long chairs with hinged recline! These put an extreme amount of pressure on your spine. This is when the pillows come in handy. Squishy pillows again - they can also be a great lumbar support even at dinner. 

🌺When laying on your side (the beach or in bed) place a folded pillow under your waist to lift it from the bed / ground to support your spine properly, releasing pressure, as well as placing one between your knees. 

🌺At night use at least 2-3 pillows under your head when sleeping. This will support your head, while releasing pressure on the cervical spine’s nerves exiting to your arms. Note to self, you may never want to sleep another way again. 

🌺When site seeing in a car, always keep a folding beach chair that reclines with you at all times with a pillow and blanket or towel. This way you can Stop no matter where you are and participate, but also take care of your spine and your pain levels. Reclining with lumbar support is key. 

🌺Pack a heating pad with you and have a pack of frozen peas available for use at night if possible. Ah! The mini fridge again! Be sure it has a freezer component. 

🌺If you are mobile. Ensure your shoes have adequate arch support. When traveling, shoes are more important than anything else you could possibly wear when recovering from spine surgery. 

🌺 Wear a Velcro based back brace at all times. This makes a world of difference that you’ll notice as soon as you take it off. The most important part of the body in charge of spine support is your core!!!! I don’t have enough exclamation points! When walking, it can can actually wear on your stomach muscles more than your legs.  Anything you can do to strengthen, tighten this region is IT!

🌺On the health end of things, here’s the deal. 90% of pain is INFLAMMATION. Sugar and alcohol are like pouring gasoline on a fire. Think about this when traveling. It’s so easy to want to embibe, just be aware of the cost when post-op or managing chronic pain conditions. 

🌺But most of all, don’t be a hero or a martyr. Parents are the worst! We don’t want to get in the way of our kids’ fun on a vacation, but remember,  you just had MAJOR surgery. I don’t care what they say, anytime they go into our spine, which is literally connected to every other part of our body, it is a huge deal and recovery can be a beast. Like they say, oxygen mask goes to the parent first

Think of your spine as another child. She’s scared and timid and in pain so taking care of it is being a good caretaker. The more you can accept that it’s ok to comfort yourself during this time, the faster you’ll heal and decrease the chance of hurting yourself even further along the way.

I hope this helps anyone heading out on a fantastic journey. Just remember it is a marathon, not a race and more important thank anything else, be kind to your spine. It is the scaffolding upon which a thousand more memories rely on in order to be made. 

XX

STEM CELL TRANSPLANT RECOVERY Month 8

A funny thing happens during the 6th-8th month of this rollercoaster that is a Stem Cell Transplant recovery, and having spoken to others I am discovering I am not alone. The last two months became kind of a black hole, a padded room, an island without communication to the outside world. Ok, not quite, but something happened where all of a sudden my recovery became so intense, the labor of physical therapy so exhausting and the status of my progress progressing yet uncertain, that my mind could not wrap around updating something I couldn’t understand myself. Sound crazy? Sure felt that way. A span of incredible days where I was Wonder Woman flipped on its head to excruciating setbacks where I wondered if I had messed it all up for good. Going from a sense of fierce independence to treading on eggshells and knocking on wood at every flash of accomplishment. Finally, at 8 1/2 months (knock on wood) I have reached a tipping point, finally leaning into a life and possibilities I could have only dreamed of before. My first steps teetering on legs firing on cylinders renewed via some extended warranty. I step with rusty, wobbling joints with muscles a mix of roast beef and jello, together in a union for a common goal. My knees finally lifting my toes off the floor but with what feels like bags of cement tied to my toes, a stuttering scenario but so beautiful I ache in disbelief. It is happening. I am learning to walk all over again. I can stand at my sink and take some steps on my own. Our goal is to continue to stretch the amount of time my spine can manage the pressures and challenges of this new mobility, mechanical issues that will take time to see if walking full time can be possible again.  But to stand up and hug my husband, our children, my mother on Christmas Day, I look back on how much I took for granted in a hug. The mere ability to feel another heartbeat and never want to let go again. 

So here is this journey so far, ongoing but at the most beautiful place atop a mountain where for the first time I can see both sides and each face of all that was and that this can be. This video is the planting of a flag to say, I was here, one for others to know it’s a place anyone could be. 

Dr. Todd Malan, Stem Cell Therapyy #arachnoiditisArachnoiditissArachnoiditis SocietyyArachnoiditis USAALife With ArachnoiditissCRPSS #crps 

(I have never been compensated for mentioning doctors. If you ever see ‘Sponsored’ on any post it is due to a Boost increasing awareness of topics covered on our journey).

Background Info:

I am 47, a wife of a rock and mother of four two-legged people and three four-legged people. I was initially injured in a accident in my driveway when the corner of the electric tailgate of my car lodged itself in the temple of my skull as I stood up quickly when unloading groceries. This inverted my cervical spine also causing CRPS of the spine as well as Arachnoiditis (two of the most painful conditions in the world above childbirth and phantom limb). My accident resulted in over 20+ surgeries and procedures, a wheelchair, and 6 years in bed 80-90% of the time. Flares of spinal contractions lasting from weeks to months occurred every 15-20 minutes around the clock(Bring in those tiny violins!) 

As of June 28, 2017 I underwent a unique Stem Cell Transplant trial and am in that recovery phase, one that has saved my life and offered me whole new one.

 Our type of injury is like suffering the death of who we were and what we knew in our hearts our life would become. It's a long process as we know and are finding out. I appreciate your acceptance and look forward to growing along with everyone here. If I discuss SCT, it will never be to try to convince anyone, only that it is a part of my personal Recovery and a multi-disciplinary approach is essential to any protocol we endure.

The Untouchability of a Stranger Thing

The Untouchability of a Stranger Things

If you are of the “tween” set, or parents-of, you would have to have lived under a rock not to have heard of the NETFLIX hit, Stranger Things. One of its young breakthrough stars from its ensemble is Finn Wolfhard, a dark haired fresh-faced newly knighted prince of today’s emerging Hollywood royalty.

Our daughter is the bullseye of Finn’s target market. She is 12 years old and has watched both seasons of Stranger Things to the point of lip syncing both seasons and figured out its theme song on the piano - a repetitive flurry of fingers each time she passes its keyboard. Many of her Christmas presents this year are Finn-themed and her greatest hope is to meet him in person someday. Or, at least breathe the same air.  Of all things Finn, the biggest draw for our girl was discovering that he actually had a band named Calpurnia. A friend of hers heard something about a Los Angeles performance.  

Our girl is not alone. Millions of young people seem to have contracted this sort of Finn-itis, a gradual inflammation of the heart caused by the mere site or mention of Finn’s name. Our home just happens to feel as though we could very possibly be, ground zero. As this ever-expanding patient population grows, millions more parents watch helplessly as their children wish upon this star to somehow, some way, point in their direction, and even more parents are trying anything they can to make this happen.  

I Google for fan conventions or celebrity appearances for the cast of Stranger Things. We live in Los Angeles, who knows, right? Nothing comes up. It is Christmas, I remind myself. The schedules for next year’s Comicon etc. probably aren’t even finalized. Then I remember Finn’s band. A few more Googles leads me to its name I had mistakingly remembered as Cornucopia. Calpurnia, evidently, was the name of Julius Caesar’s third wife as well as a genus for ‘a noble family’.  Thank you, Internet. 

Again, my search results in nothing. Trying another zip code, the idealism of a few hours of driving with my daughter strikes a tone. We could bond, she will tell me secrets and we will laugh.  That is why we do these things, right? Moms, we try.  We try so hard to create that memory, that moment our child will forever hold as the time I met my mom. 

I see it. Calpurnia is playing in New York. Three thousand miles away, the fantasy of being the type of people who could whisk their child across the country for one special night quickly clicks to reality as the right column fills the screen. As if the inability to buy plane tickets wasn’t enough, 

the cost per-ticket for a General Admission is $600. 

I understand ticket pricing is traditionally based upon supply and demand - there is but one Finn Wolfhard, and millions in demand. For a talented young man at what may be his peak, with a management team most likely accounting for the uncertainty of the industry regarding a young actor’s longevity, I can understand wanting to strike while the iron’s hot. But as a mother of four, it is yet another reminder of how out of reach our children’s idols of the day can make seem especially during a time when families are struggling and the future uncertain, even in our dreams. 

Even if we lived in New York, the cost for us to take our daughter and a friend to see Finn’s band would be more than half the equivalent of her teacher’s net monthly income. 

I am not exactly sure why I decided to put down, type up and post the gymnastics of my mind. Perhaps it is simply venting, or most likely just me being a mom at Christmastime wondering how the world keeps seeming to slip its roots. How did something that should be accessible for such a young fan base become this untouchable implausibility? For now, I will wrap for her the art-poster from Etsy with Finn and his friends on their bikes, an ironic image of relatability in this world of ever stranger things.

DAY 66 Stem Cell Transplant Recovery Learning to Stand

This video includes physical therapy exercises essential for strengthening the specific muscles necessary for standing. It also includes the first time I have been able to stand since being in a wheelchair. I hope this is helpful to anyone in my situation, but please remember, I am not a physician and was prescribed this treatment protocol by my doctor. Never attempt without clearance from your physician, and do not attempt Standing without a second person present to hold your waistband and support with their arm around your waist. I have reached this point by building my muscles with isometric exercises every day to reach this point. Do not rush your progress. This is not a sprint, it's a marathon as the wise woman said🤓 Thank you for taking the time to watch. Please feel free to share!🤸🏼‍♀️ 

DAY 54 Stem Cell Transplant Recovery - Back to the Gym

DAY 54 Stem Cell Transplant Recovery - Blue Belle and I Went 'Back' to the Gym!

I am not a physician and attend PT under an official Physical Therapist. This is an exercise pre-approved and one I take very slowly and carefully. I purposefully did not state how long I stayed on the machine because every body is relative and the only thing that matters is that we all move forward at our own pace while carefully monitoring our personal well-being. Pain is not progress! Thanks for watching!

Feel free to share! 

Love,

Mic & Blue

#stemcells #stemcelltransplantrecovery #stemcellrecovery #exerciseafterstemcells Dr. Todd Malan, Stem Cell Therapy

Day 41 Stem Cell Transplant Recovery - Ozone Infusion