Week 45 -The Cloning Bill Passes Victorian Parliament

Stem Cells are back on the news front with the Cloning Bill being voted on in Victorian Parliament. With much excitement it was passed on Wednesday. Coincidently the media had several examples of Stem Cell treatment and we had a call from Wangaratta Chronicle for a comment. We have to hope that the financial backing for the research makes it possible for it to happen.

Last week we had an interesting email passed on to us regarding a drug used to treat a patient with MSA . The drug is Terazosin. I have sent an email to our neuoligist for his comments and will see our GP this week to see if it is available in Australia.

From: “Perez, Ph.D., Dianne” Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2007 8:34:27 AM
Subject: RE: Your work with Terazosin and MSA

I am afraid that we could not do anymore studies due to lack of
funding. However, a doctor Stasha Gominak in tyler, texas gave the
drug to an MSA patient of hers and has an “almost complete recovery”.
The patient really didn’t start to see improvement until about 3-4
months into the treatment. You can ask your doctor to give you the
drug as a “compassionate use” and see if it helps you. You can even
tell the doctor to contact me or Dr. Gominak to ask questions.

The week away in Eildon took its toll and Jill is still recovering. We put off our trip to Bendigo for a couple of days and set off on Tuesday. We had lunch at Murchison and arrived in Bendigo about 3pm. Allison was at home and we met up with Oscar.

It was certainly eye opening to see how dry and parched the paddocks looked. The dams were empty with fences around the mud in the bottoms to keep the stock out. Allison suggested we drive out to Lake Epilock. It was like a Luna landscape. We drove down into the lake bed. The amount of water is 0.8% capacity of the Lake. The last time I was there was to go fishing with Allison’s Chris and we had launched the boat. I just cannot imagine how the level could be so low.

On the way home on Wednesday we saw the new Super pipeline being constructed between Waranga Basin and Bendigo. It will certainly make a difference. We picked up Jake from the kennels and headed home. The weather has continued to be extremely dry and even at home more of the shrubs have succumbed to lack of water.

We have been down to the netball courts for some more walking and Jill has certainly improved her distance – walking the length of 5 courts only holding my hand for support.On Friday she surprised me by walking 5 courts and back to the car with only a couple of rests. This was the distance she was walking unaided before the fall in October last year. I am certain she needs the confidence to start walking unaided. Later in the afternoon Beth (Jill’s Physio) arrived and did a couple of tests to see how Jill was improving and followed up this with a complete run through of all Jill’s exercises in the gym. She added some more exercises and changed some we had been doing. We have been fortunate to have Beth on a weekly basis for the last 4-5 months; this will be changed to each fortnight from now on, where Beth will be checking on Jill’s progress.

Well it’s Saturday and we actually have had some rain – I don’t think it registered in the rain gauge but it is encouraging. The forecast for next weekend sounds promising.

See you next week on the net.