This is part of an on-going communication with Menzies family's friend.  Peprinted here with permission. 

About the Institute of Cellular Medicine 

Hi Deb,

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas!

I have good news, I have communicated with two past clients of the Institute of Cellular Medicine, Dr Brenes gave me their contact information and both were very helpful and answered my questions. Both are heart patients as I am and one of them has exactly the same diagnosis as I do. Both were in Costa Rica around October.

Deb...the clinic not only exists but both Pat and Larry had so many nice things to say about it and the people who run it! Larry says it is "absolutely on the up and up" Larry is a retired health care professional himself and was very skeptical at first, so he searched out the head guy at Medistem the parent company in the US and spoke to him, and then spoke to all the doctors before he went to Costa Rica. Now he is back and is experiencing early good responses to the treatment, plus he has recommended to a friend of his that he also go to ICM for treatment. Pat is the woman who has the same problem I do and her email is glowing, she went from inability to look after her family to now looking after her toddlers, going to the gym and running on a treadmill for ½ hour, and that is before the three month period where improvement is expected. Both Pat and Larry have testing scheduled in January to see what improvements have taken place, this will be the three month mark since they came back home from ICM. I wish you and Jordanne the same good experiences that Pat and Larry had in Costa Rica, do keep in mind that the stem cells do take time to build up and start working, and from what I have read for patients like Jordanne the patient themselves are required to do extensive physical therapy to work the muscles etc. Please let me know your thoughts when you get back. This is very exciting!!!

And just an aside here..bone marrow transplant has been used for years to treat Leukemia, I had a friend who had his bone marrow transplant over twenty years ago, and although his match wasn't perfect and he had to remain on anti rejection drugs that played havoc with his system, he managed to live twenty years longer than expected when he was first diagnosed. My reason for telling you this is that lately I have noticed that any article I read about bone marrow transplant they are now referring to the bone marrow as "stem cells that will reproduce and fill the bones with new healthy marrow to produce healthy blood". So all along stem cells have been used in the treatment of Leukemia but the medical community for some reason known only to themselves, choose to eliminate any mention of the fact that it is the stem cells doing the work, not the actual marrow.

All the best for January and the New Year,

Anne