Adult Stem Cell Research Update

ChelseaAdult Stem Cell Research1 Comment

Adult Stem Cells saved my lifeHere’s some news I haven’t brought up in a while:

Four year old Dalton Rogers, born with Cerebral Palsy, is standing without assistance and taking more steps on his own since being treated with his own stem cells.

Fifty five-year-old Bhadwan Dass, a diabetic, was close to losing his leg until he was treated with stem cells from his own bone marrow.

Dr. David Prentice has info on various trials using ASCs for breast reconstruction and end-stage liver disease.

Finally, this month the City of Hope cancer center in Los Angeles, CA performed its 10,000th bone marrow transplant, the first in the world to reach such a milestone. This record-setting procedure was on a patient with advanced leukemia who received stem cells from an unrelated volunteer donor who was a compatible match.

City of Hope performed its first successful bone marrow transplant in 1976 on a young college student from Indiana who was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. His physician told him he should prepare himself for inevitable death. But his cousin, a physician in Los Angeles, knew that City of Hope was launching a bone marrow transplant program. The young student went to City of Hope to undergo a bone marrow transplant, and he has remained in remission for 35 years.

Now the City of Hope performs nearly 500 bone marrow transplant procedures each year. Awesome!

Just a reminder that ASCs continue to provide ethical and successful results for patients.

Prayer Request

ChelseaPro LifeLeave a Comment

Dear readers, I was just shocked and saddened to hear this news about a friend of mine. Her husband writes:

Last November, my wife Lorna, was diagnosed at the Mayo Clinic with MSA or multiple systemic atrophy. This is a very rare disease that unfortunately, doesn’t have any cure as of yet. She is slowly deteriorating and now has to use a walker to go around. The doctor told us that this process will continue until her physical functions will just shut down. The life span we are told, is 6 to 9 years. The pace of deterioration varies on those afflicted with the disease. At this time last year, Lorna was still able to drive on her own. Now, it is difficult for her even just to get out of bed. Her gait is slowing down dramatically and there is a pronounced weakening of the left side of her body.

Absent of a cure for this affliction, we are left with only prayers to find an answer. Like everybody in your email group, she is a very devoted Catholic. Every day we pray that a cure be found or for a miracle to happen to rid her of this disease. May I request that she be included in your prayers as well? I am hoping that with more people praying for her behalf, she’ll have a better chance of getting heard.

Prayer: You have given the sick and the suffering a share in your cross, give them patience and strength. Save those you have redeemed by your blood, Lord.

Related: How Do You Respond to the Cross?

For Better For Worse…Till Death Do Us Part

ChelseaDisabled, videoLeave a Comment

Ok, people. If you liked the story American Idol contestant Paris Tassin had to tell, you’re gonna love this one. They’re not married yet, but Christ Medina is already taking his impending wedding vows very seriously. H/t The Anchoress

Having this kind of love and support is so important after a major trauma like a spinal cord or brain injury. Personally, I would not be where I am today without a family and community who loved and supported my life. Who helped me understand that my life was still worth living though it had been altered in a major way. Though I tried to keep myself optimistic, I had my moments of doubt and self pity and would have surely sank into deep depression and despair without those people helping me see how much I had to live for.

Related:
The Life of the Sufferer Must be Affirmed
Pixar Wisdom: The World Needs More “Jackalopes”!
27 Yr. Old Quadriplegic Wants to Die

Cute Baby Caption Contest

ChelseaCute Baby Blogging1 Comment

I can’t resist posting this picture! Head on over to the Anchoress’ page and add a caption in the comment section. Best one wins a prize:

cute baby

See more Cute Baby Blogging

Get This Blog on Your Kindle!

ChelseaPersonalLeave a Comment

KindleIn an effort to keep up with the many ways people keep track of their favorite blogs these days, I recently made this blog available on the Amazon Kindle. It was surprisingly easy – and free! By free, I mean it was free for me to publish, but it does cost money ($1.99/month) to subscribe to it through Amazon. Why would you pay for something you can get for free online, you might ask? I don’t know, but people do it. I subscribe to a few blogs on my own Kindle, including Wesley Smith’s Secondhand Smoke.

So…if the Kindle is your thing, check it out! Don’t forget, you can also keep track of this blog by “liking” it on Facebook. If you’re interested in publishing your own blog to Kindle click here for more information.

A Prayer for Conversion

ChelseaCulture of Death, PrayerLeave a Comment

St. Paul imagesAs much as we want to save lives, as pro-lifers and Christians we should have a great desire to help save souls as well. One of my favorite quotes from John Paul II comes from his 2002 address to the U.S. Cardinals in response to the sexual abuse scandal:

“we cannot forget the power of Christian conversion, that radical decision to turn away from sin and back to God, which reaches to the depths of a person’s soul and can work extraordinary change.”

Today’s feast of the conversion of St. Paul is a reminder no one is so sinful that they cannot turn back to God and receive his infinite mercy and forgiveness. So, tonight my little votive candle is lit for the conversion of all those who advance the culture of death. For abortionists, especially Kermit Gosnell, and those who work at abortion facilities. For those who have had abortions or are considering one. For men and women who treat each other and their own bodies as mere objects of sexual gratification. For those who encourage our young people to “explore their sexuality” and push for expanded use of contraception. For anyone who harbors hatred in their heart instead of opening themselves up to love and forgiveness. For politicians who create laws that destroy human life instead of protecting it. For doctors who kill rather than heal. For all those who treat life as a product of science and man instead of a gift from God.

I tell you, in just the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance. -Luke 15:7

Lord Jesus Christ, most merciful Saviour of the world, we humbly beseech You, by Your most Sacred Heart, that all the sheep who stray out of Your fold may in one days be converted to You, the Shepherd and Bishop of their souls, who lives and reigns with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, world without end.
Amen.

TOB Tues.: Chastity is About Intimacy and JOY!

ChelseaChastity, Sex, Theology of the Body, TOB TuesdayLeave a Comment

Blanski.pngTyler Blanski has an excellent column up on the CNN Belief Blog arguing that Christians can be a little too prude when it comes to sex.

chastity isn’t firstly about rules and guilt, but about intimacy and joy – at the right time and in the right way. It’s an expression of being created in the image of a relational God.

…

Christian sexuality at its best is actually an expression of what churchgoers call the trinitarian life – a holistic, all-encompassing, committed love, the kind of love we reach for in marriage.

A single person’s sex life does not have to mean the sex act itself. It can be a harvesting of all that sexual energy and directing it towards something bigger than sex itself.

The sex life of a Christian single person is not having sex – yet. It’s prayer. It’s dating and learning how to love and listen better through relationship. It’s the foreplay, so to speak, to the sex life God intends for us in marriage.

Love it! Read the rest.

Tyler is a Christian recording artist and the author of Mud and Poetry: Love, Sex, and the Sacred. Find out more Tyler, his must and his other writings on his website TylerBlanski.com

Pope Encourages Use of Social Media for Evangelization

ChelseaActivism, Pro Life, Social MediaLeave a Comment

Social NetworksYesterday morning Family Research Council hosted “ProLifeCon“, a conference for the online pro-life community. There were many good talks this year from some of the most well known names in the pro-life movement encouraging and giving tips on the use of social media for communicating the pro-life message. The archived webcast can be viewed here.

Coincidentally (or, perhaps not) that was held on the feast of St. Francis de Sales, the the patron of journalists, and the same morning the Vatican also released the papal message for the 45th World Day of Social Communications which focused specifically on the internet as a network for communication. Though he warned against getting sucked into a purely digital existence and stressed the importance of real-world human relationships, Pope Benedict encouraged the use of online social networking as a tool for evangelization:

As with every other fruit of human ingenuity, the new communications technologies must be placed at the service of the integral good of the individual and of the whole of humanity. If used wisely, they can contribute to the satisfaction of the desire for meaning, truth and unity which remain the most profound aspirations of each human being.

In the digital world, transmitting information increasingly means making it known within a social network where knowledge is shared in the context of personal exchanges.

…

I would like then to invite Christians, confidently and with an informed and responsible creativity, to join the network of relationships which the digital era has made possible. This is not simply to satisfy the desire to be present, but because this network is an integral part of human life. The web is contributing to the development of new and more complex intellectual and spiritual horizons, new forms of shared awareness. In this field too we are called to proclaim our faith that Christ is God, the Saviour of humanity and of history, the one in whom all things find their fulfilment (cf. Eph 1:10). The proclamation of the Gospel requires a communication which is at once respectful and sensitive, which stimulates the heart and moves the conscience; one which reflects the example of the risen Jesus when he joined the disciples on the way to Emmaus (cf. Lk 24:13-35). By his approach to them, his dialogue with them, his way of gently drawing forth what was in their heart, they were led gradually to an understanding of the mystery.

Read the rest

Speaking of social networks: follow me on Twitter and ‘like’ me on Facebook!

Is it Any Wonder?

ChelseaAbortion, Roe v. Wade1 Comment

A little over two weeks ago a deranged man opened fire at a public event in Tucson AZ killing 6 people, including a nine year old girl, and wounding 13 others. Searching for answers in the wake of the tragedy people wasted no time assigning blame, mostly to “violent” political rhetoric on the right. I’m not writing here to get into that whole argument. But, as we mark the 38th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that declared abortion a constitutional right, I am thinking about the real violence that plagues our nation (not mere rhetoric) and definitely has negatively impacted our society.

Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. ~Blessed Mother Teresa speech to National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C. 2/3/94

One of the greatest tragedies of Roe v. Wade, besides the innocent lives that have been lost in its wake, is the fact that it made murder acceptable. The law is a teacher, and, by declaring abortion a legal right, Roe taught many women, physicians and others that killing an innocent human being is an acceptable answer to a wide range of problems. We have decided that it is perfectly fine for a whole class of human beings to be stripped of their humanity and executed when they become inconvenient. So, is it any wonder that we see violence in the streets when “the most wondrous and sacred human space – the womb – has become a place of unutterable violence?” (Pope Benedict, World Youth Day 2008 opening address)

This is not to say that abortion is the direct cause of other acts of violence in our country any more than Sarah Palin’s use of cross hairs in a political ad is. But it certainly doesn’t help matters. After all:

[I]f we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? -M. Teresa

Every child conceived is an invitation to love. Since the passage of Roe v. Wade there have been over 52 MILLION abortions committed on American soil, with the full blessing of the law. With such a massive rejection of life and love, how do we expect to foster peace in our land?

Marching for Our Future

ChelseaAbortion, March for Life, Pro Life, Roe v. WadeLeave a Comment

My prayers are with the hundreds of thousands of pro-lifers marching in Washington D.C. and throughout the country today. You’re marching for nothing less than our future, God bless you all!

Related: Lucky to Be Alive