Hi Colleen, thank you for the update. This is a wonderful forum and provides a wealth of information. Let me reply to your questions and comments.

1. Stem cell therapy. I had a long discussion with your consultant last Wednesday and asked her to wait for me to provide more detail before she communicated with Dr. Textor. I sent that to her yesterday and am waiting on the response. If you are intersted I will be happy to post the details of what I sent her here. There is nothing private in the material. It just describes my AKF issue in more detail. I've been dealing with it for over five years, now.

2. Dr. Textor. I've read his bio and reviewed presentations of his that ended up on YouTube. I know he his the right person for me to see -- which is something I have sought for over two years. What an accomplished persona and nephrologist!! After three years on dialysis, I came to many conclusions about dialysis and the medical community. Dialysis is a miracle treatment given to us by modern medicine. While no one wants to be there, it is so much better than the alternative of no treatment. Not everyone can qualify for or even wants a transplant. I am one of those. One conclusion I came to from my experience was that while the doctors I see locally are excellent and I respect them, their primary job while I was on dialysis was to deliver the best dialysis possible and not think outside the box for ways to improve my sick kidneys. They did a good job at dialysis, but most of the effort to come off dialysis was mine. I believe it never would have happened if I had not pushed my doctor. I'm not talking about alternative treatments on my own but what I found from my own research from reliable medical sources. It seems that Dr. Textor's mission is to find a way to improve kidney function and not so much renal replacement therapy. That's just my observation from what I have seen.

3. Regarding the artificial kidney, I have followed that work for several years. One of the two centers working on that project is close to my home. I think it is wonderful and am anxious to see human trials begin. They seem to be struggling for funding and that amazes me. They have done an incredible job with a very complicated issue. It sure seems funding for this effort would be relatively easy. It should be!

4. Finally, how did I come off dialysis? I have written a short story about my experience and attempted to post a link to that story but Mayo Connect still will not allow me to post links. I'll post the link if you can get that corrected.

Thank you again and I'm so glad I finally found you all!

- Max