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Jan 7, 2009 4:09 pm US/Central
Int'l Stem Cell Treatment Helps FWPD Sergeant
FORT WORTH (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
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Stem cells are considered by many to be the key to curing disease. They start out "neutral," but can become every kind of body tissue through "differentiation."
CBS
Fort Worth police Sergeant Preston Walker runs the morning briefings before officers in his district hit the streets. As he goes over the reports from the night before, standing at a podium and sipping coffee between announcements, you would never guess how ill Walker was just months before.
In fact, a year ago Walker didn't think he'd still be able to wear the badge of a police officer.
In 2001, Walker was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, suffered from chronic fatigue, and began losing the use of his legs.
"I felt like my cognition was declining at a rapid pace," Walker said. "I really felt at the end of last year that I wouldn't be employed any longer because the cognition just wasn't there."
There weren't many options for Walker's treatment. There were chemotherapy and radiation treatments available, but at $90,000 they were out of Walker's reach.
By 2007 Walker heard about a stem cell transplant option that isn't available in the United States. He'd need about $35,000 to go to China to receive it.
His fellow police officers held a hockey game fundraiser. There was also a silent auction, a bike ride and bowling tournament held to benefit Walker. In all, $11,000 was raised.
Meantime, another MS patient, Richard Humphries from North Richland Hills, read about Walker in the paper and contacted him about work being done at The Institute for Cellular Medicine in Costa Rica. The fact that it was even cheaper than the treatment in China and that Dallas doctors own the facility, sealed the deal. Humphries and Walker were heading to Costa Rica.
Physician Neil Riordan told the men that they were the first patients in the world to undergo the new treatment. For the first time ever, doctors took samples of their fat, drew stem cells from it, and reinjected it. By the second injection the results were obvious. The men had more energy than they'd had in years. By the end of the treatment Humphries no longer needed a cane to walk.
The fatigue and leg problems were a thing of the past for Walker. "I don't suffer from any of those symptoms we talked about," he said. "The depression, the fatigue, the cognitive cloud… I mean it will still raise its ugly head occasionally, but it's nowhere near everyday and every moment of everyday like it was."
Humphries admits there were risks in being test patients for the treatment. "If we or somebody doesn't become a guinea pig than how can that benefit others?" Humphries asked.
Since their treatment, dozens of others have followed in their footsteps to receive the benefits of stem cell transplants.
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