Stem cells offer hope to student Quadriplegic hopes surgery in Portugal can cure his paralysis
Just parking...Best of Luck, SS
gainesvilletimes.com
>>>>
Stem cells offer hope to student
Quadriplegic hopes surgery in Portugal can cure his paralysis
By JEFF GILL
The Times
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tom Reed The Times
Matt Dobbs, a student at Lanier Technical College, works on a computerized numerical control mill at the school. Dobbs, who is paralyzed from the waist down, is headed to Portugal for an experimental operation that involves a stem cell transplant.
It was the perfect Christmas gift.
Matt Dobbs got the phone call on Christmas Eve with the news that he was scheduled for surgery in Portugal that could reverse at least some of the paralysis he has suffered since he was injured a car accident 16 years ago.
"I'm psyched. I would have been on the plane that day," said the 33-year-old Forsyth County resident. "Christmas Day through March 12 has been the longest wait of my life."
Dobbs took time Wednesday from his machine tool technology class at Lanier Technical College to talk about his past struggles and challenges, and to look ahead to the experimental surgery that will take place in Lisbon, Portugal.
The procedure will take four to five hours. Five doctors plan to remove stem cells from an area between his nose and brain and remove scar tissue from around the neck injury that has rendered him a quadriplegic.
Doctors then will place the mass of stem cells in his neck with the hope that nerves and blood cells eventually will grow back and that he will regain sensation in areas of his body long deadened by the injury.
"They still can't understand (how the restoration works) or explain it themselves," Dobbs said.
The National Institutes of Health says of stem cells, "Serving as a sort of repair system for the body, they can theoretically divide without limit to replenish other cells for as long as the person or animal is still alive."
The doctors have been performing the surgery, which hasn't been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, for two years, with positive results in 35 out of 37 patients.
Initially, doctors didn't want to try the surgery on anyone who had been injured for three years or longer. But they have worked their way up to a patient with a 9-year-old injury and gotten results.
No one has undergone the surgery with an injury as old as the one Dobbs has, but he believes it's well worth the shot.
The surgery will cost $40,000, with his parents footing the entire bill, he said. Insurance won't chip in because of the procedure's experimental nature.
Dobbs' church, Harmony Grove Baptist, where he teaches Sunday school to young adults, passed the plate to help out with expenses and collected $10,000.
Previous tests have shown that Dobbs is a good candidate for the procedure, especially a magnetic resonance imaging of his thigh that he considers a "miracle from God."
Tests showed that where the muscles should have atrophied, "there was no fatty tissue," Dobbs said. "The doctor was floored."
And because the transplant involves his own tissue and cells, the chance of rejection is small.
"My doctor said his biggest worry is infection from surgery, and we can deal with that through antibiotics," Dobbs said. "Basically, there's no risk and all promise."
Dobbs' outlook these days is a whole lot brighter than 16 years ago. After his one and only time intoxicated, he drove his car off a road and slammed into two trees.
He woke up the next day in traction and his neck broken, paralyzed from the chest down.
After years of "going crazy from staring at the walls at home" and seeking God's direction on his future, Dobbs was able to get some mobility when his parents got a van with hand controls and a ramp.
He got in touch with the Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation Program, which gave him a career assessment test and referred him to a book on careers.
Dobbs spoke to the caseworker about possibly pursuing work as a machinist. That encounter led Dobbs to Lanier Tech and meeting machine tool technology instructor Tim McDonald.
After a tour of the machine tool shop, Dobbs and McDonald realized they could make Dobbs' instruction happen.
"I knew we had to overcome some obstacles, but (Dobbs) has such a good attitude, I knew he was up for the challenge," McDonald said.
Dobbs has been in the program for 2´ years and has two more quarters until his graduation. He also has the prospect of a job once he leaves.
But there's the surgery to get past first.
The plan is for Dobbs to stay in Portugal one week after the surgery, then spend two weeks at home healing.
"I hope to go to church on Easter Sunday, if I (am able)," he said.
Dobbs then will head to a medical facility in Detroit for intensive physical therapy. His sense of smell, a casualty of the surgery, should return after a few months.
He is hopeful for good results.
"I'm praying for everything, but I will take what I can get out of this," Dobbs said.
And years from now? "I hope to be up and walking around and running my own business," he said.
E-mail: jgill@gainesvilletimes.com
Originally published Saturday, March 5, 2005
|
