Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Physical Therapy

Here is another angel of mine. She is Anneke Bender, MPT at Shepard Center in Atlanta. She has helped me a lot with my physical therapy. You would be shocked at how much I have learn in a short amount of time. Some of the things that we are doing to help me walk are, wedges in my shoes to make me not walk on the inside of my feet. I also got new shoes that are tight on my feet. My walker was given to me and I think a short person had it before me. I will have to get one that is meant for tall people. Im being train on how you are expose to walk also. I have certain muscles that we are trying to build up to help me walk for more than 15 mins. I'm testing out the Bioness L300 Unit for my right drop foot with the hope that I get a grant that will pay for the $8000 device. Today we went over Stretching. It is a lot harder than it looks but will help me walk more. WIth HSCT my goal was to stop my progression and never get any worse. But I'm a fighter and I want to be able to walk for more than 15 mins. I know nothing is impossible and I keep going a little bit further and pushing myself. I have came a long way and while Im all the way over here, I think I will try to improve more. Daisy made me promise to walk her down the isle when she got married and maybe even a dance with her. She is a knock out and getting older on me and Im not sure how much longer I have to meet this goal. But I'm going to do it. Matter of fact, I'm going to walk 1 time around the whole track at the Griffin Airport track one day also and sooner the better. I'm going to keep doing my part and see what happens. Every little thing I gain back is a victory. Praise GOD and the 1000's of people that cared about me and helped me.

Mark Rosenthal

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Physical Therapy Evaluation

I went to the Shepard Center today to have a physical therapy evaluation for my ms. First, I love that place. They care about people there. They got to study me and see what things I can improve on with pt. I do have right drop foot and will be testing out http://www.bioness.com/Products/L300_for_Foot_Drop.php a bioness unit. I also have weak ankles. I walk on the inside of my feet so to speak also. One of my goals is to keep walking some and maybe improve it. They also said my walker is not tall enough and the one I have it for a short person. I'm going to do whatever I can to get better.

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

I had an infusion done today and update on how I'm doing.




Today I had my first post hsct infusions done today at the Shepard Center in Atlanta. Let me tell you what I need them.

Rituximab follow up infusions are "suggested" by Mexico, but not mandatory. From a prior post. . . . Regarding the post-HSCT Rituximab infusions offered by Clinica Ruiz that I will add some relevant info. First the rationale. . . . it has been discovered in the clinical trial work (mainly out of Dr. Burt's outcomes in Chicago) that a fraction of MS patients undergoing non-myeloablative HSCT appear to relapse at some point following the transplantation. Dr. Burt's approach is to retreat such relapsed individuals by administering six additional doses of outpatient cyclophosphamide, although other lymphoablative agents (such as Rituximab) are also likely to be effective. The difference with Dr. Ruiz is that his philosophy is to be proactive instead of reactive and suggests additional post-HSCT infusions as maintenance therapy, or a "booster" if you wish to attempt prevention of failure *before* a possible failure in the minority of patients in which it might otherwise occur. However, clearly not everyone will need it, but it's impossible to predict beforehand who *will* need it so Dr. Ruiz just suggests it for everyone. And the dosing (100mg) of post-HSCT Rituximab (on top of the single high dose of Rituximab administered as part of the transplant) is a gentler approach compared to more cyclophosphamide (which is very harsh) so that the patient will have few, or no side effects with the Rituximab retreatments. This is why he suggests the Rituximab, although it is not mandatory nor does skipping the infusions lessen the effectiveness of the transplant as an isolated treatment in comparison to any other HSCT facility.
http://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-5206/rituxan-iv/details


Let me update you on how I'm doing. I was warn about the roller coaster after HSCT. The goal of HSCT is to never get any worse and I have not. As of now the progression has stop. Everything else that I get is a bonus.  My brain fog is a lot better. Using the bathroom has greatly improved and I can tolerate the heat much better now.  I can still only walk for about 15 mins at a time. I still fall down sometimes due to my right drop foot. Im still fighting my ms, but I now more time and the progression is stopped.  My hair is slowly coming back. I'm sleeping a lot more than ever. I fell like a new born baby. It can take years to see any improvements if any at all. 

I dont give up and I'm going to give this everything that I have. My goal has been reached. I dont see me in that wheelchair anytime soon and still hoping for improvement in my walking. None of this is easy, but GOD knows I can handle it. 

I have also started  www.nomsingaround.com to help others that have MS learn more about hsct. 

Mark Rosenthal 

Sunday, May 22, 2016

Im back home and was welcomed by these amazing people.

I've made it back home and was welcomed by these amazing people. I'm so happy to be back home. This felt so good!













Thursday, May 19, 2016

Rise UP and Seize the Day!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6VaQaaQEofjR1hSLTEzeWllbnc Rise Up and Seize the day. I woke up very early this morning and had my talk with GOD and he wanted me to share this with you. Some of you need to hear this message. I know it is very long, but I had a lot to say. Please watch it. Feel free to share it.

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

My HSCT Treatment is done and everything went perfect!




I'm done with HSCT. Done my transfusions of Rituxmab and got the all clear from the doctors. Everything went perfect. Praise GOD and thank all of you. Prayers does work and I feel really loved and supported. Which help a lot with all of this. I'm coming home on Saturday. This all is a miracle. I should never get any worse and may regain some of the things I lost as a bonus. I will have to avoid crowds for at least 3 months. If your sick, stay away from my family and me Last August I wanted to die and my progression was quickly taking away what Little things I had left. GOD put the right people in my life. I shared my plan with everyone and Praise GOD, a couple of thousand people help me. With prayers, money and just being there for me. I feel so alive now. Thank you for loving me. These pictures are from today. I'm coming home!
Mark Rosenthal







Tuesday, May 17, 2016

White Blood cells count is at 55,000. Everything still going perfect.


My white blood cells are at 55,000 today, which means my new immune system is kicking butt. Everything is going perfect.



Sunday, May 15, 2016

Saturday, May 14, 2016

NoMsingAround.com website was created to help people with MS learn about HSCT.

Today I created http://www.nomsingaround.com/

I’m Mark Rosenthal from Griffin GA and I made this website to help others that also has Multiple Sclerosis. I had progressive M.S. I have found a way to stop my MS progression and I want to teach you how I did it and help you do the same thing. August 2015 I was at the lowest point of my life. I had given up all hope in ever getting better from MS. When I was at the point of wanting to die, God sent me an angel named Erika Spranger Grant. She had HSCT done in Russia and was getting better from her MS. I’m going to save you a lot of time and show you everything. As I type this now, I’m in Puebla Mexico finishing up my own HSCT treatment. To answer your question, yes, it works! I’m going to prove it to you and then I’m going to show you how you can do it. God bless me so I can bless you. I’m paying back what I was freely given. I have a lot to cover and I will always be adding something to this website to help you. Also, feel free to reach out to me directly. I’m here to help you. MS is such a monster that a lot of people don't know about. My mission is to help as many people that has MS as I can and to show others what I have been shown.  

As many of your already know, MS is an autoimmune disorder where your own immune system attackes itself. HSCT use chemo to kill your immune sytstem and help retrain it. It also uses your own stem cells to reboot your immune system.
My Blog will show you every step of my HSCT treatment. http://savemarkrosenthal.blogspot.com
Please bare with me as I build this website. Check back and see what all I have added and done. These things takes time...

Friday, May 13, 2016

May 13th White blood count is at 900

Just got back from seeing the doctor. My white blood count is now at 900. So my immune system is stopping. It may still go lower and after a few days, start climbing back up. I'm stuck in the apt besides going to see the doctor every 2 days. I'm not allowed to eat a lot of foods, but we are making the best out of it. When I go to the doctor I wear the n100 big mask. But I do get to see stuff out the van window. Doctor said I'm doing good and where I should be.

Mark Rosenthal 
 




 

7 AM shots and blood taken every 2 days.

How do I start my day? At 7am daily shots. Every 2 days while here they take my blood, like today. I have really bad veins and it takes a couple of tries always to get blood. I make them laugh and feel better about it. They usually end up taking it from my hands or wrist. Today, I go back and see them for blood results. I will see what my white blood cells are doing. At this point you want them to continue to drop and then by next week come back. I got my n100 Mask ready and it will give me some time to look out the van window for a couple of mins....yes,, this excites me....There is a lot to look at. The people here are amazing.




Wednesday, May 11, 2016


My white blood count is at 6100 and going down. Which is normal. They say it may go down as low at 900ish the the new couple of days. My immune system continues to reboot. I'm now stuck the the apt, which they clean very well daily. I will keep doing blood work every 48 hours. Keep doing tons of pills and daily shot. I do have a blister coming up on my neck. I hope it aint shingles this fast coming back. I do have sensitive skin. I'm doing very well all in all. I cant tell you what it feels like to go from worrying about a wheelchair and nursing home later on, to truly believing that I wont get any worse and that I may get back some of the things that I lost. My goal is not to get any worse. Even if I never get any better, I will be happy with never getting worse. I do think I will regain some things, just because I got my mind made up and you cant hold me down long.
Mark Rosenthal



Sunday, May 8, 2016

Saturday, May 7, 2016


I'm done with my chemo and get back my stem cells tomorrow to reboot my immune system.

Please watch my video.


Friday, May 6, 2016

It was a great day and I harvest enough stem cells and started chemo again.

Everything went perfect today. I got my stem cells harvest in one try. Some people takes up to three times. That meant I could do chemo today. I have chemo again in the morning which will be my last chemo and will kill my immune system and this ms progression,,,I never thought Id say that. Sunday I get my stem cells back and start rebooting my immune system. What a wonderful day.  Doctor also gave me a sleeping pill, so I'm going to sleep good tonight. I'm so blessed.



Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Not an easy day, but I got through it. To start with Happy 16th Birthday to my son Brandon. The port was hard to sleep with last night, but with pain pills it helped. I decided not to take it mid day which I regret now. Pain pills scare me. Too easy to get addicted.  My bone barrow / stem cells kick my butt, which to think about it is a good thing. Tomorrow is last days of shots. Friday they will remove my stem cell and then kill my immune system with high dose chemo. Sunday after my immune system is dead, they reboot it with my stem cells. Not going to be a easy but I will beat MS.




Monday, May 2, 2016

Monday May 2nd Update from Mark Rosenthal. Tomorrow I will have my port put in, for stem cell collection. We have been on a lot of meds to get the bone barrow out of our bones and for them to grow. Watch my video for my update.





My new family that is also having HSCT done with me.


Saturday, April 30, 2016

Just about every night, we make it to the top of my apt and this is our view. It is like talking to GOD. I look for signs all the time and I'm seeing them. I feel the prayers and I cant tell you how good it feels to be so loved. I woke up sore all over this morning, but that means my stem cells are growing and leaving my bones. Which is a good thing, but still makes me sore. Every day is a gift from GOD. I want to say this again, that we all will fall down many times in life, but what matters is that you keep getting back up or trying to get back up. Even when you dont think you can. The impossible is possible. I know this 1st hand.
Love Mark Rosenthal

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Chemo has started and Im taking back my life.


Today was the 1st day that I got to attack ms back. I started 5 hours of chemo today. No problems and I'm with other people that are getting HSCT done here also and we are like one big family. They are all so amazing. We laugh a lot today.














Tuesday, April 26, 2016

April 26th 2016


I need to go back a couple of days. I try and update people on my facebook but need to do it on here also.  First Everything went perfect getting here. It is even nicer than I thought it would be and the staff are great here. I love the apt we are staying at also. Ive already made some life long friends. There are 15 other pairs of people having HSCT done also. Day 1 they put us all in a room and went over everything. They answered every question we could think of. I highly recommend Mexico HSCT for anyone trying to decide where to get it done at.  Mexico also gives you Wifi and a landline go call home on. The staff takes really great care of you.



I'm going to talk about today April 26th. We spent the whole day testing to make sure we can take chemo and do this. Everything from blood work, urine, lung test, xray etc. I met with a heart doctor. The best part was I spent about 1 hour with a great Neur doctor. He really study my MRIs and me up close. He told me that I need a right leg/foot brace that it would help me.  He said that I am progressive but gave me a EDSS score of between 4 to 4.5, which was great. I thought I was about a 6. There are all kinds of different levels of MS here. Some in wheelchairs and edss from 7.0 to 2.0 I would say. It is a reminder of who bless I am to be able to stop this while I can still walk some.

Thursday, April 21, 2016



My story made it on Fox 5 Atlanta News.  Be sure and check it out. I'm glad the word is getting out about HSCT. I hope to help as many people as I can.


I have been so worried about my aftercare treatment of getting Rituxan transfusions and today was a great day for me.

Christy Boes and Brandy Bass are my angels. Part of my HSCT aftert reatment is Rituxan (Rituximab) transfusions. Which is a big problem finding a doctor to help you get this. I've been trying for months and was even going to have to fly back to Mexico every 2 months to do it. But Christy Williams Boes and Brandy Bass saw my post and works at Ga Cancer Specialists in Griffin moved mountains for me and talk to Dr Rao Moravineni. I went there this morning and DR M. worked me in and called me into his private office there and listen to my story and has agreed to help us. He is going to do a lot of work and try his best to make this happen. There are so many human angels helping me. This was my biggest thing Ive been worried about lately and didnt know how we would do it. I cant tell you how good it makes me feel to be loved. Dr Rao Moravineni,  was amazing and caring.


 

Saturday, April 16, 2016




I'm Mark Rosenthal. I live in Griffin GA. I'm married to my soulmate Christie and we share 5 children together. In the last 2 years my Multiple Sclerosis has really been trying to put me in a wheel chair full time. I can only walk for about 10 mins at a time now. It is like someone has put 100 pounds on both ankles.  While you can walk with 100 pounds on both ankles, you wont do it for long. My first signs of MS started many years ago. I first sign of MS was all of the sudden everything in my right eye was bright. Like someone was shinning a flashlight into it all the time. I could still see out of it, but it was like taking your computer screen and turning it all the way bright. I also notice when I got hot, that my body was just shut down. I went to many different doctors that could not figure out what was wrong with me. I ended up going to a nero eye specialist and he did a simple flash light eye test. He notice that my two eyes didn't even dilate at the same time. He said it could either be a brain tumor or MS. That was the first time I ever heard that I may have MS. To be honest, I didn't know what MS was. Next they did a MRI of my brain and saw legions in it and also on my spine. My life quickly changed. But I didn't know how quickly it would go down hill. You can just about hide having MS for strangers. Just 3 years ago, I could out walk most people. Slowly I could walk less and less. I also had a lot of other thing happening. I could no longer get hot either. My mind started having what I call brain fog. I woke up dead tired. I could not sleep well. I'm never hungry. I have bathroom issues. All my Nero Doctor quickly put me on Avenox shots. Which gave me flu like symptoms about 2 days a week.  The first time I took it, it was just a few hours later that I thought I was dying. All my muscles tighten up on me and the chills started. I had to call my family begging for help. It was so hard to allow my family to see me this way. In a ball, crying and shaking. I quickly learn to take Advil every 2 hours the day of the shot and after it. Eating a pineapple that day of taking it also helped a lot. MS is such a humiliating disease that I wanted to hide from the world. I'm a man and had male pride so to speak. About last July when I had just about given up all hope in getting better, GOD put Erika Spranger Grant in my life. My brother in law had ran into her husband and told him about her going to Russia and having HSCT done. Donnie quickly told my sister Mandy. She quickly told me about it. At first I could not believe any of it.  The more I studied it and saw talk to other MS people that had it done the more I believed. Ericka showed me how to apply to get on list and showed me every step of the way. I was quickly denied clinical trials here in Chicago.  In August Mexico accepted me on their waiting list. We knew we had to start fundraising asap. At the time HSCT was $54,500 alone. You also need 4 MRI's. Flight there and back for 2. Food for 28 days. Also 5 transfusions. You teeth had to be good enough for chemo. We thought about $60,000 would do it. We started fundraising which seem impossible. As you all can image, raising $60,000 is almost impossible. I put my faith in GOD. I didnt know how we would pull it off, but I believe if he led me to it, that he would led me through it.  My amazing sister Mandy, who is now a fundraising ninja broke her neck to save me. When we had raised about $15k the price went up $5400 last Jan 1st. We were so heart broken when this happen. The last thing I ever wanted to do was ask people for help. I was used to being the one that helped others. Not the one that needed help. I watch all of this happen and still can only say it all was a miracle. We finally got an April 24th 2016 date. We had 60 to 45 days before that day to pay them $54,500 in full. To have another chance at life and be so close was a lot on all of us. I had about another 4 days left to pay them and my step mother was dying. We were about $16,000 short and needed a miracle when the owners of Varagesale.com Tami and Carl step in to help me. Within about 3 hours they raised the rest of the money I needed to send to Mexico. Here was the family in Macon watching Cathy die and so needed something good in our lives when Tammy message me to check my gofundme acct. I dont think I stop crying at all that day. We were able to tell Cathy that we did it just a few days before she died. I strongly believe that GOD puts people, places and things in your life for a reason. At my lowest point in life, he reminded me that he is still GOD and can do anything. There are human angels on this earth. I could have not done this without the help for many thousands of people. Most which I dont know. I wish I could name all the people that helped me. I have never felt so loved in my life.  We still had a lot of work to do to get ready to do this. The battle against MS is just starting. I'm going to use Chemo to kill my immune system and my own stem cells to reboot it.  I'm going to share all this with yall so that others thinking about doing this, will learn more about it and have a chance at it. I think I'm being blessed so that I can bless others. MS gets the short end of the stick a lot. Ms does not get the attention that cancer and a lot of other conditions get. I'm going to try my best to give MS and HSCT a voice. Im gearing up for the battle of my life. I went ahead and shaved my head early, because I was scared to do so and Im not going to allow anything to hold me back. Turns out I look okay this way. Not sure what I was so afraid of. The worse part of all of this is being away from my kids and family for so long . But they all have told me that all this is worth it. By the way, as you can tell I'm very random. That is a MS thing. Get spots on your brain and we will talk. LOL. I feel like yall are all on this journey with me. The good, the bad and the ugly. The goal is to stop the progression. We hope that stem cells will also do for me what it has done for many others. I'm going to try my best to build my legs and body back up.  I'm going to lose my immune system and it will take time to build it back up. This is a up hill battle that I know I can do. One trick to life is not to give up no matter what. We all want to give up on things, but the trick is to keep fighting. I will try my best to keep yall updated. My wife will try her best also. She will go with me to Mexico and be my caregiver. She is fighting a few medical issues also. Please keep praying for her. She never wants to be in the spot light or get any attention, but she is my rock. She takes care of my daily. She never complains about it. www.savemarkrosenthal.com is the website that I made. PO BOX 1302 Griffin GA 30224 is my mailing address.  Im just starting this blog. Im getting tired and think I have written enough.

Love Mark Rosenthal