Husband's log - February 3rd, 2026

After a few days in the clinic, Angela feels like this experience is akin to summer camp as we are meeting new people from all over the world and do activities together.  To me this experience feels like a retirement home simulator since our meals are made for us and our apartment is clearly built for heavily disabled or elderly persons.  I'll elaborate in greater detail so you can immerse yourselves into the once-in-a-lifetime experience of staying in a Clinica Ruiz apartment.

  We begin by walking through the front door.  Immediately we notice this door and all other doors in the apartment are wide.  Neither of us packed a tape measure with us as we aren't carpenters or dads, so we measured the door widths using the only feasible measurement tool available: the metric Ang.  As Angela layed on the floor across the span of our bedroom door, we ascertained the width is about a 3/4 Ang as it spanned from her lower chest to her toes.  Converted to imperial units so any readers who aren't Angela and I can picture this, a 3/4 Ang is about 4 feet.  I guess the wide doors make sense as some patients of the clinic might need wheelchairs or just be eligible contestants for TLC's hit series 'My 600lb Life'.

Alongside the 4 foot wide doors there is a two cushion roulette couch, aptly named as every time we sit down on it, we don't know if we'll be blessed with a soft landing or surprised with an unexpected hard spot under the cushion, forcing us to shimmy to a more comfortable position.  Across the couch is a tv and a small kitchen island countertop with two stools of medium comfort.  I've converted this island into my office for the next 23 days.  The apartment has two bedrooms each equipped with a double bed and large dresser for storing clothes.  There is also a safe in the primary bedroom to hold valuables.  Our safe has a bit of a greedy personality as it chooses to stop working after our passports and money are locked inside.  Thankfully the clinic staff find us trustworthy and have given us the one master key to all the safes for the rest of the month.

The apartment washroom is about the same size as each of the bedrooms, with a nice low toilet and handlebars to help us rise from the throne after completing our business.  Despite the massive size of the washroom, the vanity is barely wider than the sink itself.  A questionable interior design choice based on all the washrooms we've seen on HGTV, but it'll do the job while we're here.

Outside the apartment, there is a rooftop patio and a gym we are free to use during our time at MS summer camp.  Our first time in the gym, Angela had a great time using the elliptical, lifting small weights, and performing her yoga routine.  I ran on the treadmill for 10 minutes and nearly died.  I choose to believe my cardiovascular shortcoming is a result of Puebla's high elevation (7000ft above sea level) and has nothing to do with the fact I haven't jogged in five years.

As I mentioned earlier, we met more patients partaking in the HSCT treatment with Ang.  One of which is a 36 year old man from Germany and his caretaker from Puebla.  He has had MS for 17 years, so Angela was intrigued with his story of trying every DMT drug under the sun and all of them coming up short.  He also taught us of experimental vitamin D injections from a Brazilian doctor which has helped him see symptom improvements, but his research ultimately led him to undertake the HSCT treatment in Mexico as it is considered the best of them all.  Despite low rates of acquiring MS, Latin Americans seem to know their shit when it comes to treating it.

Talking with other patients in the clinic from Germany, Switzerland, Canada, and the US, it seems their stories are similar to Angela's in that the healthcare system in each of their respective countries would only prescribe DMT drugs for them even though they have 50% efficacy rates at best (compared to the 80%-90% efficacy of HSCT).  I guess healthcare system bureaucracy and MS drug company lobbying is not unique to Canadian soil.  Despite frustration with each of our respective healthcare system's back home, I'm certain every patient here is grateful to be going through this treatment with other kind individuals with similar MS experiences.