January 15, 2025
It’s January 15, 2025. I’m on a video call with my mom. She’s in her backyard, kneeling in her garden, her face covered in dirt, planting something new. Four years ago, this same woman couldn’t stand up from her dining room chair without wincing in pain. Four years ago, her doctors told us she had just three years to live, max. Four years ago, my mother’s organs were drying up. As if they were turning into paper.
Deciding to Go to Russia
I remember the day we decided to go to Russia. We’re sitting at my kitchen table, surrounded by printouts of medical studies, email chains, fl ight schedules, and Google-translated Russian phrases. My mother’s walking cane is propped against the wall nearby, a constant companion she can’t leave home without. She tries to hide the pain she’s in as she sips her peppermint tea – one of the few things her restricted diet still allows.
“Four people,” I say, pointing to a line in an email from the Moscow clinic. “They’ve only treated four people who have your same disease using this stem cell therapy.” Mom nods, her face showing the same stubborn determination that got her through four and a half years of being misdiagnosed… before a doctor fi nally put a name to what was happening: Diff use Scleroderma. Mixed 5
Connective Tissue Disease. Her immune system was attacking her own body.
“And Russia’s at war,” I continue. “Plus, it’s fi fty thousand euros.” I don’t mention that the GoFundMe campaign wasn’t accepted. Some details don’t need sharing.
Moscow: The Procedure
Two months later, I’m standing outside a Moscow hospital that I’m not allowed to enter. There’s still snow everywhere, even though it’s spring. The nurse sends me photos of my mother – pale, smaller somehow. Her immune system is deliberately destroyed by chemotherapy before they reintroduce her own harvested stem cells. A reset button for her body.
A week passes. Then a month. We fl y home. It was one of the longest months of my life.
Learning to Live Again
When we get home, I watch my mother learn to live again. First, she can sit up without wincing. Then eat a tomato without her joints swelling in protest. Then walk to the mailbox without her cane.
The moment I saw the real diff erence wasn’t a dramatic one. It was barely noticeable. It’s three months after Moscow. She shows up at my house unannounced. And I fi nd her climbing stairs, something that would have been impossible without her cane before. She doesn’t see me watching. She’s not performing a miracle for an audience. She’s just living – taking a coff ee upstairs because she feels like it. 6
And now, years later, I watch her through my computer screen as she kneels in her garden. She looks up and smiles, dirt on her cheeks, the sun on her face. Behind her, I can see the walking cane, repurposed as a stake for her tomato plants.
The Turning Point
“The twins are coming soon,” she says casually, referring to my sister’s unborn children she was never supposed to live long enough to meet. This is the moment, watching my mother’s hands work the soil – hands that doctors said would be too weak and painful to garden again – that I know what I want to do with my life. I want to help people improve their quality of life with stem cells. Maybe I can’t help them live longer. I can’t cure them. But I can do my best to help them live better .
That risky trip to Moscow, that experimental treatment, that desperate gamble in the middle of a war zone – it wasn’t just about keeping her alive. It was also about giving her a good quality of life.
Where Things Stand
Mom stands up from her gardening, brushes the dirt from her knees, and walks toward the camera without hesitation, without pain, without her cane. She’s not cured. The treatment didn’t reverse everything. But she’s gone from twelve pills a day to two. Her blood tests show a huge improvement. And she’s still alive even though her doctors gave her a death sentence. The disease has stopped in its tracks. 7
A Note to You
That’s what I want for you. A therapy that allows you to make plans for your future. A chance at potentially slowing your disease. So you can live better. I can’t make any promises, because I don’t know your specifi c situation. No one can promise you an outcome. And just because stem cells worked for my mom, it doesn’t mean they’ll work for you. But my hope is that this book helps you have educated conversations with your medical teams. And maybe… give you your life back. While stem cells can’t cure your disease, there’s a chance that they may be able to help improve your quality of life.
Wishing you the best of health,
Matt Clarke
The Healthy Cells
