Humbly Courageous

Hello, and welcome to the final blog post of 2024 with Humbly Courageous! I am so glad you stopped by. What a year it has been. I feel like there was a little bit of everything sprinkled in this year. There were highs and lows as with any year of life. Days when I felt on top of a mountain, and days when I felt deep in the dark valley. After 50 years, I am still learning the fine art of balancing life. Maybe we never fully grasp that concept. One thing is for sure, a look back on this year has me feeling grateful for many things in my life.  This year I received 3 stem cell treatments. # 9, 10 and 11. I am grateful for the opportunity to receive these treatments, and for the time being plan to continue to receive them. I do think they keep me going in a way that I wouldn’t be without them.  I have so enjoyed writing my column, “Disability in the City” for my hometown newspaper, The Hamilton County Reporter. I have now been writing my column for a year.  It has been such a...

Hello and welcome to a new week at Humbly Courageous. I am so glad you are here! A couple of weeks ago, I received my 11th SVF (stromal vascular fraction) stem cell treatment. I have been doing these treatments about every four months, for four years now.  I often question if it is worth it. Am I even seeing any benefits from this expensive treatment not covered by my insurance? Then I think about what I told myself when I began this. That even if it was the slightest improvement, it is worth it to me. It is my only option at this point, as far as “treatments”  for my type of Muscular Dystrophy (Bethlem Myopathy).  I don’t have any huge updates, and I’m not doing anything new, physically. What I am doing, is continuing to stay somewhat stable with where my disease is. It’s hard to decipher what is disease and what is aging. I suspect most of my decline is disease related. However, when living with a progressive disease, staying somewhat stable is a gift, and certainly som...