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From what I understand from my Mom, she contracted M.A.C. (Mycobacterium Avium Complex) and Pseudomonas Areuginosa (a rod-shaped, gram-negative bacterial infection) from the usage of potting soil quite a few years ago. She is now clear of the M.A.C. but still suffers from the Pseudomonas, which stays in her sinuses and prevents her from being able to taste or smell.

After being teated with antibiotics for at least three bouts of pneumonia many years before any of this took place, she had extensive scarring damage in her lungs and bronchial passages. She was also premature at birth and both her parents smoked heavily.

For several years after being diagnosed with M.A.C. and then Pseudomonas Areuginosa, she was given a myriad of antibiotic treatments, including the insertion of a PICC (peripherally inserted central catheter) to administer some drugs that cannot be taken otherwise. A nurse came each day and flushed the line, checked the ports and sanitized them, and started her treatment. She eventually learned to do all of this herself, but she was so weak at times from both her illnesses and the medications, the nurse had to return.

None of the medications touched the Pseudomonas Areuginosa infection, and the last weapon in her lung / infectious diseases doctors’ arsenal was Tobimycin—the most potent and unfortunately unbelievably physically intolerable treatment. She had to stop it.

Over the many years of her illnesses, I did a lot of research on how exactly these diseases worked, where they came from, and any kind of new research, discovery, or technical lab reports. I found out about what is now called “Phage Technology”, a century - old treatment discovered before penicillin. Phagotherapy, or the use of lytic bacteriophages, is a treatment by which lytic bacteriophages attach to the diseased cell and then inject it with its own materials, killing the harmful bacteria. Once only in research phase at the Texas A&M Phage Technology Lab, it looks to now be readily available in quite a few U.S. locations.

Please pray for me as I look into finding a nearby location for my dear Mom to receive treatment, as it is also now approved as a “compassionate-use” therapy and prayerfully her insurers won’t balk at it. She’s so very ill and weak and can hardly draw a breath without a punishing coughing fit. Dear Lord Jesus, it doesn’t have to be me—you know the circumstances. Please send that right doctor and hospital or clinic into her life.

Thank in advance for your prayers, my beloved FReeper FRiends. God’s Eternal Grace is with you always.