Husband's log - February 2nd, 2026

Yesterday we awoke to find ourselves in the same bed we fell asleep in the night before with our kidneys intact.  So far so good.  Shortly after getting out of bed, we received a text from Dr. Juan to stay in our apartment until he shows up to test us for the Covid-19 virus.  I guess the HSCT clinic wasn't listening when the US government in its eternal wisdom told everybody the Covid-19 pandemic was over back in 2022.  If anything, this confirms how seriously the clinic takes all their patients' health & wellbeing.  Within about half an hour, Dr. Juan arrived at our door with one of those nasal Covid-19 test kits.  Angela volunteered to go first in all her bravery.  As I saw the medical-grade q-tip slide up her nostril and the wince on her face.  I recalled the memories of forced tears as we'd dig white plastic sticks up our noses during the dark ages of Covid just to get approval to go buy bananas at the grocery store.  It was now my turn to get tested.  Within an instant, the q-tip was in and out of my nose, only a slight poke to be felt.  I think we were using the test kits wrong back in the early 2020's.  We were advised to wait for a new text in 40 minutes advising us if we were Covid-free, or a viral threat to the other patients in the building.  Once we got the SMS granting our freedom, we made our way down to the restaurant for an orientation presentation.

The orientation featured a selection of tasty breakfast options, including bowls of fruit featuring the exotic papaya.  If Trent had MS, he'd enjoy this daily fruit bowl aspect of the treatment.  Although the papaya tasted weird at first, it's one of those foods which grows on you like coffee or beer.  As we looked around we saw about 12-15 other pairs of people sitting at the different tables.  Some married couples like us, some parent & adult-child pairings, some patient-caregiver combinations.  During the orientation presentation, we learned a bit about the history of the HSCT Clinic, some medical statistics about the outcomes of the treatment, and where everyone who's taking the treatment is coming from.  Despite being a Mexico-based clinic, the bulk of their patients come from the US, the UK, and the Netherlands.  It now makes sense why we saw so many Dutch books in the library on our way to the restaurant.  Among our group of patients, there are a couple from Mexico, a couple from the UK, a couple Canadian patients including my wife, one German, one Asian, and the rest come from the US.  The presentation also advised the procedure has a .2% chance of mortality based on the 4500 treatments done by this clinic since 1993.  Considering we thought there was a 2.0% chance of mortality based on what the MS Clinic in Saskatoon told us, I found this decimal shift to be quite the relief.

After the orientation and breakfast we made our way up to the rooftop patio garden to get some sun and take in some views over the city of Puebla.  The restaurant staff told us the city is surrounded by four volcanos, all of which we can see clearly from the rooftop.  We met another patient up there from England who's experience with MS sounds almost identical to Angela's.  He talked about how nervous he was for his dog which gets stress-induced diarrhea when it's away from its owners.  This made me feel grateful our dog Nora does not have crippling anxiety 😛.

Later that day we were driven to an MRI facility for Angela's brain scan, spine scan, and chest x-ray.  It was literally one block away, but even that distance can feel like miles of walking for some MS patients. At the facility we communicated with the MRI technicians through an interpreter named Google Translate.  The scans took almost 2 hours.  I can't describe the scan experience since I wasn't in the MRI room, but I can tell you I completed five 15x15 crossword puzzles while being serenated by various mid-2000s Daft Punk songs.  Once the scans were completed, we were driven back to the clinic.

At the clinic we went to the nursing station, where Angela underwent a spirometry test, medical history consultation, and a cardiovascular heart test in a 45 minute period.  It was a surreal experience waiting literally 30 seconds between each test, as we're used to waiting months for the same things in Canada.  The Mexican nurse found that hilarious when I told him.  Part of the medical history consultation involved asking Angela about her level of education.  I found this amusing as I'm not sure how the physiology of a University graduate differs from a guy with his GED, but who am I to question the treatment process 😛.  Once these tests were done, we retired to our room, ate an avocado tuna dish for supper, and fell asleep on the couch watching Amazon Prime.