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

1 comment:

  1. Mark - I am so sorry to hear of your illness. I pray that God will grant you peace and endurance as you undergo this trial.I do not know what it is like to be in your shoes but it is obvious that you put a lot of effort into this blog post. I appreciate your transparency and openness. These are things people, let alone men, do these days.

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