Husband's log - February 23rd-27th, 2026

On Monday morning, Angela had another blood sample taken from the nurses in the clinic.  With how much blood they've been taking from everyone, you'd almost mistake the nurses for friendly Mexican vampires.  Thankfully we know that isn't the case because we've seen them walk outside in the light of day, plus their caramel complexions don't match the pale skinned description of vampires throughout history.  A few hours after the blood sample, we had a hematology consultation with Dr. Ruiz, otherwise known as the HSCT king with the badass mid 1900s Porsche.  He told us Angela's white blood cell count had now dropped to 600 cells per microliter of blood.  Ang's old immune system was finally on its death bed.  The count dropped below the required threshold of 1000 for the treatment to work.  With no spare white cell warriors left in the spleen and the blood vessel walls, her old rebellious immune system was ready to admit defeat.  As these old white blood cells kept dying, it became a buyer's market in Angela's bone marrow as bone marrow properties were being abandoned left right and center.  The young millennial stem cells began occupying the real estate like it's the only chance they'll ever get, primed and ready to hunker down and grow into the obedient white blood cells of Angela's new immune system.

While the real estate revolution took hold in Angela's bone marrow, we just waited it all out in our 500 square foot apartment, watching show after show after show.  I don't think either of us will be watching tv for a while once we get home.  Nora (our dog) will be thrilled because she hates it when we sit down and watch tv, as it means we're not paying attention to her.  The day to day quarantine and limited culinary options is getting a little bit old.  Although they are tasty, one can only eat so many Mexican style omelets and beans in their life, and I'm pretty sure we've passed that threshold.

Wednesday morning we were expecting another day of quarantine after Angela's blood sample, but we were shocked when we came back from the gym and saw a message saying Ang was ready for the final part of her treatment this morning:  her Rituximab infusion.  Angela was promoted to get Rituximab with Group 2 ahead of schedule today because she reached the minimum white blood cell count of 4300.  Rituximab is a drug designed to kill any and all B cells hiding in Angela's bone marrow which might have survived the chemotherapy.  If chemotherapy was an atomic bomb, Rituximab would be a series of guided missiles targeting evil B cells while avoiding all the friendly cells.  During the infusion, the medical staff provided us with our discharge papers, including information on all the restrictions in Angela's lifestyle for the next several months.  She received a more pleasant gift of a hat and clay mug alongside the papers, all wrapped with a bow in a carboard box like HSCT Christmas.  I guess this is one of the perks of privately funded medical treatments.

Once the Rituximab infusions were done, we all headed back to the vans to go back to our home clinic.  Upon our arrival, each of the patients were given a pin to place on a large map on the wall of the lobby.  The map shows where all of the Clinical Ruiz patients came from over the twenty something years they have been operating.  Looking at the map, we could see the overwhelming majority of their patients came from the US and Europe, with a big chunk spread across Canada and New Zealand.  There is currently no official known cause for MS, but if the MS researchers had a look at this map, they'd see this disease likes to target people who drink milk.  I think we figured it out.  We just need to take Dairyland off the shelves and we've stopped MS for good! 😂

Regardless of our Nobel prize winning discovery on the map, we learned Angela was the first Saskatchewanian ever to visit Clinica Ruiz for treatment.  That makes her literally one in a million.  She played an important, brave role pioneering MS HSCT treatment for the rest of Saskatchewan.  We hope her HSCT journey shows other MS sufferers in Saskatchewan that HSCT treatment is a viable one-time treatment alternative to the Disease-Modifying Therapy (DMT) drugs most neurologists in the developed world try to push onto their MS patients.  While those drugs may work for some MS patients, HSCT is the ultimate option for any MS patients who want to stop their disease progression instead of slow it, who want to go on living without the extensive side effects of the immuno-suppressing DMT drugs, or who see no benefit from the DMT drugs.  We're ashamed our neurologists in Canada, the US, Germany, and several other countries won't even mention this treatment to their MS patients, as if it's some sort of dirty trade secret that would put the DMT drug companies out of business.  We hope this blog helped to destigmatize the notion of travelling to Mexico for HSCT treatment.  It was the best medical care we've ever experienced and we can't recommend it highly enough for Angela's MS peers back home in Saskatchewan.