A CURE IS ON THE HORIZON! PLEASE KEEP PRAYING FOR MY RECOVERY!

It has been a few weeks since my last post. I apologize to everyone who is following my blog. Let me start off by saying THANK YOU! THANK YOU, for all of you who continue to read my blog after two years and for following my progress. You have NO IDEA what it means to me to hear that people are still reading my blog posts. It is because of all of your encouragement that I have remained motivated and continually work towards my goal of walking again!

When we started this blog, it was during the roughest time of my life. The doctors were not sure if I was going to live or not and the blog helped keep people informed. Since then, it has continued to not only inform people of my progress but has become my ministry to share with everyone God's blessings on my life! The REAL purpose of this blog is not just for my random updates on my progress, but that others can SEE GOD working through the miracles and blessings in my life! I hope and pray that when people read my blog YOU SEE CHRIST! I hope you see "WHAT IS POSSIBLE" through hard work and FAITH. I know I will one day walk again, I JUST KNOW! I will continually press towards my goal all the while giving God ALL THE PRAISE and GLORY for each success along the way.

Most of you have been wondering about my last post and the new addition to our family! My sister gave birth last week to a BEAUTIFUL new baby girl, Kyleigh Rae! She was named after her father, KYLE and my grandfather whose name was RAY and was a huge influential part on all of his grandchildren. I am very excited to be a proud new UNCLE!!

In my last post I had mentioned about saving my sisters umbilical cord blood. We had planned on extracting the stem cells from the blood which could then be used to treat my spinal cord injury. I talked with Dr. Wise Young the leading SCI researcher and after consideration we decided it would not be the best thing to do at this time. The chances that my sister's stem cells would be a match for me would be very slim, less than 25%. It would cost a lot of money to save the blood, and once the science was ready to move forward on the clinical trials it would be a gamble whether or not the stem cells would work. There is a large bank of stem cells which can be accessed once they start with the clinical trials. Using the stem cells from the bank would find me a closer match. They would do blood tests on me and then go to the bank to find the match, this would be a better choice than saving my sister's cord blood and crossing our fingers it would work? In other words should we spend a lot of money with a less than 25% chance of working? OR spend the money down the road and buy from the cord blood bank where we can find a donor with a 95% chance of working?

Science is making REMARKABLE strides in finding a cure! I have been told many times that if you have a spinal cord injury, this is an EXCITING TIME in research. They are making amazing discoveries DAILY! In the laboratories they have come close to finding a cure. WELL....they have actually FOUND THE CURE, but it has not been tested on humans yet. In the laboratories scientists have regrown the nerves in the spinal cord and have regained function in rats and other animals who are walking again after having there spinal cord's severed. They have seen it work in microscopes and in preliminary tests on animals. THE ONLY THING holding back the cure is BUREAUCRACY and MONEY! If any of you are scientist (which I assume none of you are) the FDA and government make you jump through 100 hoops before they open up testing on human clinical trials. Once you have met the hundreds criteria from the FDA, they throw 100 more hoops and road blocks in front of you! Its a NEVER ENDING struggle for the scientist to test their CURES on humans. Cures and effective therapies to CURE chronic spinal cord injuries are currently sitting on shelves in laboratories waiting to be tested on humans.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/video/16172312/index.html

This video link posted above is OLD! Dr Stephen Davies and MANY others have made HUGE strides just recently! This video is actually outdated as new research is coming DAILY! Our problem, as you can hear at the end of the video, "human clinical trials will HOPEFULLY begin in the next three years!" HAHA, that is the struggle scientists are facing! They need money and grants to fund the trials and the Government to allow them to test the therapies on humans. I have heard COUNTLESS scientists say they are on the BRINK of finding effective therapies to regain function and allow those with Spinal Cord Injuries to WALK AGAIN! All their data and tests in the labs tell them IT WILL WORK, but they are not allowed to give it to humans?!?
PLEASE, NEVER STOP BELIEVING! PLEASE KEEP PRAYING FOR ME! WITH GOD, ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE!

I LOVE YOU ALL!
SO MUCH IN HIM,
BRENT