Adult Stem Cells Rebuild Alabama Woman's Heart
by Jennifer Mesko, associate editor
Noncontroversial research wins another convert.
Alabama event planner Carron Morrow was hanging Japanese lanterns for
a wedding last summer when she suffered her fourth heart attack. A
week later, the doctor told the 58-year-old mother of two she was a
walking time bomb: The right side of her heart was functioning at
less than 50 percent. They tried stents and a defibrillator. Then she
was put on the heart transplant list.
"All I could do was cry," she says. "I just thought, 'I'm about to
die.' There's 100,000 people waiting for a heart."
By fall, she grew worse.
"I couldn't walk 20 feet without being on somebody's arm," Morrow
says. "I couldn't go to the mall. My legs just wouldn't carry me. I
knew I had really gotten worse."
Her church rallied around her. "Each time I've had one of these heart
attacks, the church has surrounded me in prayer," she says.
'I started praying'
Morrow's nurse from her third heart attack had been researching adult
stem-cell therapy and came across a groundbreaking study at the Texas
Heart Institute. Her health records were sent to Texas.
"Within a month's time, I was in Texas," she says.
But just 30 people would be admitted to the study: 20 would receive
stem-cell therapy, and 10 would receive a placebo.
"I started praying," Morrow says. "They called me at a quarter to
five." She would be part of the research that began in Brazil more
than a decade ago.
First, she had to sign liability papers for the surgery, which is not
approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
"My next choice was just to drop dead, so I signed everything," she
says, "and had full confidence in that group."
On Oct. 14, 2006 — her birthday — she went into surgery. Doctors
removed about 50cc of bone marrow from her left hip. Then the cells
were cultivated. Four hours later, she was back in surgery, where 30
million stem cells were injected into the right side of her heart.
Morrow stayed in Texas for nine days and returned every two weeks
through January. A local businessman, for whom she had catered, paid
for all of her plane trips.
'I could sing a whole song'
"I knew within two months something was going on," Morrow says. "I
could sing a whole song at church."
By December, she "was plating food as hard as any other chef there."
In April, "I had a huge wedding in Jackson, Mississippi. We put in 80
hours that week. My sister said, 'Carron, you know you have the stem
cells.' "
The following week in Texas, it was confirmed: "This little bitty
envelope had 'stem cell' in it."
This month, she returned to the University of Alabama, where she had
received dire news just a year ago. She had another CT scan to see
how her heart was functioning.
"The doctor calls and says, 'Ma'am, the right side of your heart is
normal.'"
She thought he had the tests messed up and had the report faxed to
Montgomery. "I was in la-la land for several days."
PBS featured her on a documentary that aired June 7.
"I told the doctor, 'I don't understand why we have this huge
political mess going on about stem cells,'" Morrow says. "I'm living
proof that adult stem cells work far better than embryonic. And why
should embryonic even be in discussion?
"I'm here to say, 'I'm living proof. It saved my life.'
"I'm just doing great."
She doesn't even need her $85,000 defibrillator anymore. The cost to
culture the stem cells, Morrow says: Less than $600. "This is going
to revolutionize heart disease.
"This community has been such a strength for me," she says. "I am
just so blessed. I feel so undeserving. I am not a perfect person. I
just am overwhelmed with how good God is to me.
"I have been given an opportunity … it just blows me away, at how
good God is, even when we don't deserve it. I am very, very grateful.
"I hope God lets me shout it from the rooftop, 'Your own stem cells
work.'
"I am just so excited about the study of stem cells, the
possibilities.
http://www.citizenl
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StemCells subscribers may also be interested in these sites:
Children's Neurobiological Solutions
http://www.CNSfoundation.org/
Cord Blood Registry
http://www.CordBlood.com/at.cgi?a=150123
The CNS Healing Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CNS_Healing
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