I got very excited the other week, hearing about the (small) study that has been done in Glasgow, where doctors have made improvements in stroke patients' movement and balance, with the help of stem-cell therapy. In the same week, I was listening to a radio-programme about the history of disability. One of the topics covered was that of the 'miracle cure', the hope of which has been with us down the ages. People have sought cures for the most hopeless of cases since time immemorial, and I have to confess that I'm one of them...in thought if not deed!
When I had 'my' stroke (back in 199), stem-cell therapy was in its infancy. Very much at the research and experimental stage. I remember newspaper photographs of mice with (human) ears growing on their backs. It seemed to be forging ahead so quickly that we talked with confidence of 'within ten years there will be some treatment that will offer, if not an outright cure, at least significant improvement.' Well, ten years have come and gone. I am still paralysed and talk like Darth Vader on a bad day (if I talk at all!). The longed-for cure still hasn't materialised.
I am, naively, still hoping for a miracle cure and stem-cell therapy seems the closest thing to it. But research into it seems to have encountered many hurdles and pitfalls along the way, though it has rarely been far from the headlines. In the early years there were many reports of people travelling to Eastern Europe for treatment ... was this a type of modern-day pilgrimage? (And in the eyes of some people, stem-cell research is the work of the devil; quite the opposite of a miracle!) It seems pretty miraculous to me ...
Commonsense tells me that it won't be miracles that will provide effective treatments for stroke, but hard slog, and slow, painstaking grind. I wonder whether they will come in time to help me! Meanwhile I shall keep hoping for a miracle!
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