PATIENT OF THE MONTH
Michel Thibault
 Michel Thibault’s story is not an easy one tell – mostly because all of the parts cannot be wrapped up into one tidy little bow. While it would be amazing to find a medical treatment that cures every condition, gives a lifetime guarantee of perfect health, it’s simply not the reality.
No single treatment can cure all ills. Outcomes are determined by a myriad of factors, including the condition of the patient’s body upon entering a stem cell trial. And that is the backbone of the Michel Thibault story.
Michel Thibault is a serious athlete who nourishes his body in a sensible way, stays away from tobacco, and only drinks on occasion. He’s not the kind of guy anyone would expect to develop heart disease. Still, that was precisely the diagnosis Thibault received after fighting a cold that he describes as never ending.
Thibault was only 31-years-old at the time.
Within days, Thibault was on a heart transplant list. “It was kind of unreal,” he said from his home in Canada. “I remember being depressed about it, but I got treatment and was able to deal with it.”
Not only was the young man dealing with a shocking diagnosis, but as an A-Type, he was also busy running his own company. Although at one point he had stabilized enough to be removed from the transplant list, by early winter 2011 he felt his body weaken. Tasks that had once come easily now felt like a chore.
“I had a problem walking and knew I was about to die.”
It was doctors in Canada who first mentioned stem cell therapy to Thibault. He says now that
doctors were hesitant to say “too” much because stem cell therapies are not approved in Canada. Still, doctors wanted him to know that he had an option.
He began to research in earnest, looking for a safe place to receive his own stem cells. It was a daunting task as Thibault questioned how much he could truly know about a hospital or doctor based upon a web site or advertisement.
“I had to do something. My ejection fraction was 10 percent.”
An ejection fraction measures the volume of blood that is being pumped by your heart, to tell how well your heart is working. A normal heart measures around 50-60 percent.
“Most people at 10 percent are sleeping most of the day and in a wheelchair. You’re alive and breathing and your brain is function, but even just walking is a problem. I didn’t want to get into a wheelchair at 37 or 38,” Thibault said.
He traveled to the Regenerative Medicine Institute, Mexico in September 2011.
Thibault admits that even as he flew into San Diego and was driven to Tijuana, he was unsure that RMI was legitimate. He calls his actions “a leap of faith.”
His initial fears gave way to pleasant surprise. “The treatment was perfect at the hospital,” he said. Not only was RMI running a legitimate stem cell trial, but they operated out of a world-class hospital and employed some of the finest medical specialist in the business.
Thibault says that very early on he felt “different.” Before flying home to Canada he even felt strong enough to go out with friends for the evening in San Diego. Within days, he began a new job.
“I took a break from exercise for three months, but I felt a big change in my own body. I started going back to the gym again. As I exercised, my condition got better.”
He’s only been tested once since returning to Canada. Though the technician who tested him told him that his formerly enlarged heart had slightly decreased in size, his ejection fraction numbers remained essentially the same as prior to the procedure.
Thibault believes that the test results could have a number of explanations, ranging from the time that elapsed between his stem cell trial and the first follow-up test, to whether the technician was being conservative in his rating. He hasn’t lost hope, believing that it’s possible that his next ejection fraction numbers may be better.
“If I were a retiree, all of this would be easier. But I’m young, ambitious, and work in a competitive environment. If what I’ve read in some studies is true, and the heart can continue to heal for years after treatment, I’ll be happy,” Thibault said.
Asked if he would try stem cells again, Thibault does not hesitate. “I would because I know there’s a lot of success with that kind of treatment.
PATIENT OF THE MONTH
Dolores “Pat” Bland
 If your mental picture of a great-grandmother is not a dynamo on the tennis court, Dolores “Pat” Bland might just shatter your previously held image. Pat so loves the game of tennis that she’s been known to say, “Someday I’m going to die on the tennis court, ending with a fantastic shot.”
It was last year when Pat noticed that her game was suffering. “I started coughing,” she said. “I could get along, but I was doing things like bouncing the ball a little longer when I was getting ready to serve.”
She stubbornly stuck to an intense playing schedule until Pulmonary Fibrosis became so tenacious she was unable to ignore it. “Last April I played four days in a row and on the fourth day I thought I might not make it back to my car.
Pat’s doctor insisted that he told her back in 2008 that she had Pulmonary Fibrosis – sometimes described as scarring of the lung. Pat laughs as she recalls her conversation with the doctor and the realization that she probably hadn’t heard him when he first diagnosed the problem.
The idea of pursuing stem cell treatment to fight the disease was first broached by Pat’s son. “He research Hospital Angeles and thought I should do it,” she said.
Pat -- who spends half of the year in Washington State and the other half in Ventura County, California -- traveled across the border with her husband, Duane, for the procedure on February 9, 2012. She says that it took them 15 minutes to get from the border to Hospital Angeles.
“I found it to be a positive experience. The hospital was beautiful, the doctors were wonderful, and the nurses were precious and sweet. It might as well have been a resort.”
Once she got back home Pat says that her oxygen level increased from 85 percent to 92 percent in one month. In addition to the staff at RMI, she credits her U.S. physician, Dr. Miguel Gonzales, with supporting her decision to travel to Mexico for treatment. “He’s an up-to-the-minute doctor,” she explained. “He treats me in ways that fit my needs.”
These days, Pat is the most popular person in her church. The same people who prayed for her throughout her treatment now want to know everything she can tell them about stem cells. She even discovered that the 55-year-old mother of a girl from her church has also undergone stem cell treatment and is doing well two years out.
“God planned our bodies to heal themselves, but sometimes we get in the way of natural healing.”
Today, Pat is back to being able to climb stairs without stopping to cough, she’s enjoying her family, and recently had no problem keeping up with friends visiting from Washington State.
Now, it’s just a matter of becoming strong enough to get back out on the court. “Tennis is very important,” she said. “I can live without it, but I don’t want to.”
PATIENT OF THE MONTH
Lynn Munson
 As the first person to participate in stem cells trials at Regenerative Medicine Institute, Mexico, Lynn Munson is a pioneer of sorts, although to hear her tell it, she was just a lady looking to get her life back. Speaking from her home on the Kansas-Oklahoma border, Lynn clearly recalls the daily struggle she once faced with COPD.
“I had a good friend who was a doctor here in town,” Lynn said. “I was always going in to see him with pneumonia or bronchitis. I couldn’t be around people much because I had a very low immune system. I was sick, but wasn’t thinking it was COPD.”
The eventual COPD diagnosis led Munson and her husband, Jim, to learn everything they could about the disease. The information available was sobering. 16 million Americans have been diagnosed with COPD, 14 million who suffer from chronic bronchitis and two million from emphysema. COPD is a progressive disease and is the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S.
“It progressively got worse. I couldn’t walk and talk at the same time. Two years before I had the procedure I couldn’t do anything. If I did go to a friend’s house I couldn’t talk very well, so I decided that I wasn’t going to go out anymore.”
The rapid decline in Lynn’s health changed the couple’s life. Once actively involved with a tight-knit group of friends, Lynn found herself encouraging her husband to go out and enjoy himself without her. Jim Munson was much more interested in making his wife comfortable. He sold his business and stayed home to take care of her.
Lynn found herself feeling guilty for the loss of their social life and for the fact that she needed Jim to help with everyday tasks like housekeeping.
It was by chance that Jim first heard of stem cell trials for COPD. Lynn says that her husband was on an annual golf trip with friends when someone told him about another acquaintance who had been treated with stem cells. Jim thought it was worth looking into.
By then, Lynn’s life was a shadow of what it had once been. “I couldn’t believe it would help. Going to Tijuana was a last-ditch effort. I told my husband that I wanted to die at home, not in some airport. He encouraged me, promised to get me where I needed to be quickly.”
In late 2009 the couple traveled to Tijuana for treatment. They didn’t know what to expect, but they knew they needed a miracle.
“Before we left I had asked my doctor to be honest with me about my condition. He told me I was designated near death,” Lynn recalled.
Armed with all the information they could gather and a great deal of anticipation, they arrived at Hospital Angeles ready to take their best shot at recovered health.
About 48 hours after her own stem cells were reintroduced into her body, Lynn says that she felt more alert and started to feel hope that something was happening within her ravaged lungs. It was an episode that took place on the way home that left Lynn embarrassed, but pleasantly surprised.
“Just before we got on the plane to come home I started coughing. I didn’t want to make anyone around me nervous, but I noticed that the more I coughed, the more my lungs started working again.”
Although she recalls being self-conscious, Lynn says that the very fact that her lungs were now strong enough to help her cough up mucus was a sign that they were beginning to work properly.
The staff in the doctor’s office in Kansas were amazed. “When I came back I was able to walk into the clinic,” Lynn said. “The nurse was going down the hall saying, ‘Lynn’s walking! Lynn’s walking!’”
While she still uses her wheelchair on occasion, Lynn says that life is pretty much back to where she hoped it would be. She’s enjoying her five grandchildren and once again takes pleasure in hobbies, like jewelry making.
“I don’t think about being the first one at Regenerative Medicine. I’m just so thankful for the way I feel and the way I can breathe.”
PATIENT OF THE MONTH
Eileen Heuker (husband Harold)
 If you want to know the truth about a person, ask someone who loves her. Dr. Peggy Watson speaks of her mother-in-law Eileen Heuker with admiration and outlines her journey back to health through the eyes of a physician.
It was what seemed like a manageable case of carcinoma that changed the course of Heuker’s day-to-day life. In what may best be described as “overzealous,” her doctors treated Heuker’s superficial skin cancer with nearly 40 external beam radiation treatments. Radiation not only killed the skin cancer, but also the blood vessels in her leg and surrounding tissue.
“Prior to all of this, she was vibrant,” Peggy Watson said of her 82 year old mother-in-law. “She walked five miles every morning; to the bank, grocery store, and hair dresser. She had no trouble going up and down the basement stairs and doing her own laundry. She has a huge garden that she took care of.”
After radiation treatments, Heuker’s life changed dramatically. In spite of rounds of antibiotics, skin grafts, plastic surgery and treatment in a hyperbeuric chamber, Heuker’s leg wound could not respond to treatment. The best U.S. doctors could do for her was clean the wound and remove gangrene.
Peggy Watson spoke of the visiting her in-laws in Ohio after radiation treatments had ended. “We saw her in May 2011 and couldn’t believe how frail she was.”
The vibrant woman in Watson’s memory now needed a wheelchair to get around. She suffered from chronic inflammation and was in constant pain.
“The wound was open to the air and getting infected. It was exquisitely painful for her. ” Watson said.
It was while attending a meeting of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine that Watson first learned that there was a treatment that could potentially help her mother-in-law. “I wandered into a meeting, thinking it would be about liposuction,” Dr. Watson laughed.
What she heard instead was that liposuctioned fat produces millions of stem cells; stem cells that can be used to help the body heal. Two weeks later, Heuker was undergoing stem cell treatment.
Watson says that one of the things she likes about Regenerative Medicine Institute is that patients are part of a study. “It’s important that findings can be written up so that the government can study and accept them.”
By the time Eileen Heuker returned to her Minster, Ohio home in May 2011, healing had already begun.
“She’s doing beautifully, has no pain, and is walking miles again. She’s back to going up and down basement stairs and doing everything she wants to do. She’s happy and strong again,” Watson said.
Peggy Watson still recalls the expression on her mother-in-law’s face upon seeing her leg for the first time following treatment. “This was a leg that was dark, dusky, and purple from lack of blood flow. The next morning the entire wound was pink,” Watson recalls. “My mother-in-law was so happy that she was in tears.
PATIENT OF THE MONTH
Morton Farina
 Morton Farina is a man of action. 14 years ago as he disembarked a plane Farina felt a tightening sensation in his chest. Rather than wait to see if the feeling would pass, he headed for Eisenhower Medical Center. It was there that Farina was told he needed bypass surgery.
Fortunately, Farina’s surgery went well and he was able to return to life as normal. As a pharmacist, owner of a clinical compounding pharmacy, consultant and real estate agent, Farina is a busy man. He really doesn’t have time to be sick.
He went back to the business of living and his health held steady for 12 years before Farina suffered another heart attack. Just as he’d taken prompt action after the first heart attack, Farina went to work discovering what his alternatives were. One of the options he explored was stem cell therapy for the treatment of heart disease. He learned that programs were available in Israel, Korea and West Germany, but it was a physician friend who first suggested he look into Regenerative Medicine Institute in Mexico.
“He had a patient who had gone to Mexico for treatment,” Farina said. “That patient did so well that my friend told me about it.”
Farina and the friend travelled to Tijuana where he checked into Hospital Angeles for treatment. As a physician who formerly taught emergency medicine at Loma Linda Medical School, Farina’s friend was especially interested in the procedure and its outcome.
Mort Farina describes the procedure as though it was a simple trip to the doctor’s office, rather than an attempt to heal his heart.
“We went down on a Sunday night. They did the liposuction the same night and injected stem cells directly into 27 different areas of my heart, using a catheter through the groin.”
Next, doctors took the large numbers of stem cells that were left over and gave them to Farina in an IV drip. By the next day, Farina and his friend drove home.
Asked about his experience at Hospital Angeles, Farina was direct. “I am a fanatic about hospitals. This is a Class A facility.”
Months later, Farina is back at full-throttle, consulting with other pharmacists, teaching, selling real estate, and absorbing knowledge about everything that interests him.
He seems to be taking it all in stride.
“I feel fine, but I’m not surprised” Farina said. “I did my research and knew there was no downside.”
In his no-nonsense way, Farina sums up his impressions of stem cell therapy. “Cedars-Sanai is now building a big building, just to do stem cell research,” he said. “This is the future of medicine.”
PATIENT OF THE MONTH
Danielle Smith
 There was nothing about Cindy Smith’s pregnancy to indicate that she would give birth to anything but a perfectly happy, healthy baby. Smith and her husband, Jeff, got the happy part, but when their daughter, Danielle, was born five years ago it was with serious health problems.
Danielle Smith was born with Myelomeningocele, the most severe type of spina bifida. Spina bifida refers to a birth defect that involves incomplete closure of the spine. Like Danielle, many children born with spina bifida are born with a sac on their back where the spine has not fused together. In addition, children with spina bifida may face hydrocephalus, partial or complete lack of sensation, weakness of hips, legs or feet, partial or complete paralysis of the legs, and lack of bladder or bowel control.
That’s a heavy load for new parents to carry, particularly when they have a 21-month-old daughter at home and no prior experience with spina bifida. Fortunately for little Danielle Smith, she was born to parents too stubborn to give in to their fears. Even as Danielle was transported to a better-equipped hospital, Cindy and Jeff were gathering information, hoping to find out more. Six hours after giving birth, Cindy left the hospital and followed her daughter to another neo-natal unit.
“The prognosis they gave us the day she was born was the she would be wheelchair bound, with no bowel or bladder function,” Cindy said from her home in the Chicago area.
By the time they took their baby girl home two weeks later, Cindy and Jeff had already begun to formulate a plan. It was a plan they had to come up with on their own, given the fact that there were few support groups to turn to.
“There are 180,000 cases of spina bifida in the U.S., but not many good programs available,” Cindy said. “When you’re told your child has spina bifida you want a place you can go for answers, somewhere that offers equipment exchange and a place that will assist with grants for equipment and therapy.”
The Smiths had saved their daughter’s cord blood, but weren’t sure how it could help. They set out on a mission to find out how they might intervene, how they might help Danielle see improvement.
They started her in early intervention physical therapy sessions at four months, and Cindy continued to ask questions. She asked therapists which exercises would be most beneficial to her daughter and talked to doctors about what they could expect from little Danielle.
“We couldn’t get doctors to commit to anything because when you’re dealing with nerves in the spine you just don’t know. You could take 10 kids with the same damage and they would all have different abilities,” Cindy explained.
As the Smiths began to hear of new technologies being utilized outside the U.S., they paid attention and learned everything they could. Along with learning about the ground-breaking technologies being practiced in Europe, China and Mexico, the Smiths began to learn how expensive such treatments could be. It was difficult to know that there were treatments available that might help their little girl walk, but that due to costs, they were just out of reach.
That’s when Cindy began fund raising. With the help of family, friends and businesses, she gathered enough money by the time Danielle was three to take her to China for stem cell therapy. Because she was not allowed to take Danielle’s own cord blood into China, they would be depending upon stem cells harvested from another umbilical cord. It wasn’t until they were in China and Danielle was being tested that they learned there was a problem. Danielle has Rh negative blood. Due to the lack of Rh negative cord blood in the Chinese population, they would not be able to give Danielle the umbilical cord blood stem cells that they traveled half way around the world to receive.
It was a blow for the Smiths, but they settled on the next best thing: mesenchymal cells, multipotent stem cells that come from the umbilical cord rather than cord blood itself. Treatment began, but while Cindy had extensively researched cord blood cells, the effect of mesencymal cells on a condition like Danielle’s were unknown. Treatment was halted and Cindy brought Danielle home. The most difficult for thing for her as they left China was the knowledge that all but one of the patients who had received stem cells from cord blood during their stay were already seeing improvement.
Cindy Smith, though, is not one to dwell on disappointment. In her mind she was already planning to learn what the doctors at the Regenerative Medicine Institute could do for Danielle. In the meantime, she’d learned some amazing physical therapy techniques for her daughter during their time in China.
Dr. Lopez and his group were able to work with the Mexican government in order to have Danielle’s own cord blood transported to Tijuana where her stem cells were injected directly into her spinal cord. The move was groundbreaking because Danielle was the first person to receive her own umbilical cord blood stem cells for Spina Bifida.
“We consider Dr. Lopez and all of the doctors involved as Danielle's angels,” Cindy said.
Almost immediately, the Smiths could see changes in their daughter. Her balance improved, she gained feeling in her feet and legs, and could even feel her father tug the hair on her legs when she wasn’t looking. Two months after her procedure, Danielle took her first step. Two months after that, she was taking four to six steps.
“Her orthopedic surgeon here says that she’s not supposed to be doing what she’s doing,” Cindy said.
Still, Cindy knows there’s more that can be done. She would like to put her daughter in a four-week, intensive therapy program, but that program comes at a cost of $7,000. It’s frustrating for Cindy to think of the thousands of children born with spina bifida who could be helped by such treatment, if only they had the funds.
She’s on a mission to create a foundation for new parents, just like the one she wishes she’d had access to when Danielle was born. She wants there to be a place where parents can call and find out more about their child’s condition, what treatments are available, where to get equipment, and how to make contact with other families going through the same thing. While she helps her own child, Cindy Smith utilizes a blog to let people know about the treatments they’ve experienced first-hand and to update Danielle’s progress. It’s called happydanismith.com.
Today, this outgoing kindergartner who loves reading, princesses, Dora the Explorer, and playing with her sister Samantha is on the long road to recovery. It’s a road she’s taking one hard-earned step at a time.
PATIENT OF THE MONTH
Milana Plucinski
 In many ways, Milana Plucinski has led a charmed life. She lives in the very house her parents first brought her home to as a newborn, has been married for 35 years to her husband Don, and has three children she adores.
Like many little girls, Milana grew up fantasizing of life on the stage. She dreamed of being one of the Radio City Hall Rockettes. What she never dreamed would happen was COPD, a disease that would so debilitate her that she would be unable to walk a flight of stairs without stopping for a rest, or to complete an entire sentence without trying to catch her breath.
COPD stands for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a term used to describe a condition that makes it difficult for patients to breathe normally. While it may start off as a simple cough, COPD gets worse slowly over time.
Speaking from her northern Ohio home, Milana explained, “When I first got sick I had pneumonia, but I really didn’t do anything about it. A couple of months later, I got pneumonia again.”
By the time Milana asked her husband to take her to the hospital she was too weak to walk. She spent 10 days in the hospital, six of which she has no memory of.
“Everything was taken away at once,” Milana said. “I went home on two liters of oxygen, thinking it would treat my lungs and I’d be well.”
The memory of hearing the harsh truth is tattooed in Milana’s mind. It was about 18 months later and Milana was at the Cleveland Clinic for a checkup.
“I asked the doctor when I could get off the oxygen. She told me, ‘You’re not going to get off that oxygen. You need a lung transplant.’”
Milana described the moment she and her husband heard those words.
“It was like we were floating. It was like a movie.”
Don Plucinski asked the doctor the question that was on both of their minds. What would happen if Milana didn’t have a lung transplant? The doctor matter-of-factly told the couple that she did not expect Milana to make it two years.
Milana and Don cried on their way home from the clinic, disbelief mixed with despair. Although she initially refused to be put on a lung transplant waiting list, Milana eventually relented.
“I was horrified because I wasn’t expecting that,” Milana said. “I was thinking, I don’t want to die. I have two daughters, a son, and my husband. I have things I want to do. I don’t want to die in two years.”
Milana traveled to the Cleveland Clinic every three months for lab tests. She took advantage of pulmonary rehabilitation, but her condition continued to deteriorate. She and Don worried about leaving home, knowing that if the clinic called with a lung, they would need to be within two hours of the hospital.
She also became discouraged with the idea of life as a lung-transplant patient.
“I didn’t like the five-year survival statistics after a lung transplant. I didn’t like the constant restrictions I would have like always having to wear a mask and dietary restrictions.”
The Cleveland Clinic called twice with news that they had found a suitable lung. Both times, Milana was too ill with upper-respiratory infections to undergo the transplant.
“I looked at my husband and said, ‘This is an omen.’ Something was telling me not to do this.”
By mid-2011, Milana was at the end of her rope. She had a family she wanted more time with and two young grandchildren that she desperately wanted to watch grow. Worried about her mother, Milana’s daughter, Joanna Blondeau, began to send her medical research.
Milana explained, “One night she sent me information about stem cells. I got to reading one thing after another and pretty soon it was four in the morning. I ran across information about Hospital Angeles.
“My husband got up at 7:30 for work and I was still on the computer. He asked if I’d been up all night and what was going on. I told him, ‘Yep. I’m going to Mexico.’”
By midday, Milana had done more research on the Regenerative Medicine Institute, Mexico. She knew that their board-certified specialists had experience harvesting adult stem cells and transplanting them into very ill patients.
When her husband called from work, Milana was armed with information. He encouraged her to pursue her research. It was Dr. Jesus Perez at Regenerative Medicine Institute who explained the procedure to her, including that fact that because she would be receiving her own stem cells, her body would not reject them.
The more she learned, the more excited she became.
“I said to my husband, ‘I don’t know about you, but I think I’m worth $20,000.’”
Don Plucinski agreed and in late July, the two headed to San Diego. They were picked up and driven across the border to Hospital Angeles Tijuana.
“I was floored by how beautiful it was,” Milana said. “They greeted us right at the door.”
Unable to walk the distance down the hall, Milana was pushed in a wheelchair to her room.
“We had the most beautiful suite. My husband could stay with me and they brought our meals in to us. The nurses were so attentive, I got to thinking they were hanging out outside the door,” Milana said with a laugh.
Milana may have been surprised by the quality of the hospital and its staff, but she was especially touched by Dr. Perez. This man she merely knew by reputation and had only spoken with by phone sat with Milana and Don and talked for three hours.
While Milana’s personality still shone through, Dr. Perez could easily assess her condition.
“She wasn’t doing so well,” Perez said. “She was completely oxygen dependent at a high concentration. She had trouble getting around and had to stop often to catch her breath. She couldn’t speak for long periods without stopping. It was hard to watch because she was obviously frustrated with not being able to do what she did before.”
Milana didn’t mind the battery of test that was run on her that first day. She was beginning to feel hope, to become confident that this stem cell transplant might help.
The following day, a board certified plastic surgeon performed liposuction to remove ½ cup of belly fat from Milana. It was from that fat that 144 million stem cells were harvested.
“About 90 minutes later they were hanging the IV bag with the stem cells right in my room. We were watching TV. It couldn’t have been any more relaxing. They brought me a nice tray with Jell-O and snacks.”
Milana remembers it taking around three hours for the stem cells to make their way from the IV bag into her body. She was released from the hospital the next day, under instructions to take it easy.
That, for Milana Plucinski, was easier said than done. A friend and her husband were flying in from Arizona to meet Milana and Don for dinner in San Diego and Milana says that she had an incredible rush of energy.
“I don’t know if it was mental or not, but I hadn’t felt that way in four years,” Milana said.
Six weeks later, Milana says she’s still waiting for the “crash.” Back in their Ohio home, Milana’s husband asks why she won’t stop working around the house. She tells him it’s because she finally can.
One week after the transplant, Milana was able to reduce her oxygen from six liters a day to five. At two weeks, she was down to four liters. Three weeks after the transplant, Milana’s family doctor was surprised by how much air she was getting into her lungs.
Dr. Perez says that it generally takes three months for a patient to achieve the full benefit of stem cell treatment. Milana is excited to see where she’s at when that 90 day mark hits.
“I forget that I’m not completely well,” she said.
Milana’s children are astounded by the change in their mother’s condition. While her son Tony was initially worried about his mother travelling to Tijuana for treatment, he’s changed his mind.
“He’s shaking his head now, saying this is incredible,” Milana reported.
Perhaps, though, the greatest compliment of all came from Milana’s daughter.
“My youngest daughter, Valerie, said it best,” Milana said. “She used to say that I had lost my sparkle. Now, she says, ‘Mom, your sparkle is back.’” |
