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On Wed 22 Sep, Jim Finn wrote: > Hi Group - > > We've reached a bit of a landmark. Last week I spent 2 days in Boston for > the 36 month post-op evaluation. The first part of the tests consisted of a > neurological / psychological examination. Its purpose is to determine > whether or not the implant procedure had any effect (either positive OR > negative) on cognitive abilities. Hello Jim. I am very pleased to see your 'Third Birthday' results, and to see that you feel that your progress continues to be in the positive direction. I am still in the programme for a fetal cell transplant ; it appears that it will take place around the end of this year. No-one could accuse the Swedes of acting precipitately ! I expect that this may be in complete contrast to your experience with a commercial company? As an ex-member of industry I find this relaxed pace very frustrating, although I recognise that rushing around and maybe missing something would not be to my advantage. I may have mentioned that the programme consists of 6 ops per year - I am number 6 this year. So far, I have been down to London twice for 2 and 3 days, where they put me through what must be very similar tests to yours. Fortunately for me, I have agreed that I only have to stop my Madopar (that's Levodopa) tablets for 12 hours before the test- the Permax which I also take has such a long half -life that it would probably take weeks without it to get an absolute level, and of course I would be virtually frozen (I don't think I could stand that). I am pretty sure (and my neurologist agrees ) that I have very few Dopamine-producing cells left. So : using a secondary baseline consisting of levodopa OFF and Permax ON suits me, and is OK for the Research team. By the way, The Swedes do not seem to worry about the potential implications of the wide scatter in the two mass testing programmes (Yours and the fetal cell test.) I get the message that by their practice of doing small numbers of tests, and only subjecting 3 or 4 PWPs to any given test configuration, may lack the precision which the mass trial brings, but they have picked up a lot of tricks along the way, which your teams have not learned yet. I have two more test sessions (making four in total, spread at monthly intervals) after which I will be ready for the operation. A question occurs to me: One of the prime reasons for the uase of pig cells must be that your team had no worries about the quantity of cells that they could use. Have you heard any mention of the quantity of cells transplanted in your series (or the fetal cell test)? A logical reference point is the number of cells in a young person, before they start to die off. It would be nice if we could fill-in some blanks in that question. Regards, -- Brian Collins <[log in to unmask]>