Germany and Xcell wrap up

For those that have interests in Xcell, these are my tid bits and process as to how we experienced them.
1. Apply on line. Fill in medical history.
2. A Xcell consultant assigned to your region will contact you. USA clients will have a USA consultant, Japan will have a Japan consultant. Makes sense as we all speak different languages around the world. The consultant will request copies of medical documents and a current MRI or other. The consultant communicates with the doctors in Germany. The consultant will come back with an approval or no approval for treatment. This process is the most time consuming. If you need to make MRI appointments, medical appointments etc.
3. Once approved, you tell the consultant what dates you want to start treatments. The consultant gets back to you on treatment dates and times. You will have a deadline to tell the consultant: Yes, these are my flight times and this is how I will pay for treatment. I recommend International Bank Draft. Our bank did not know what IBD was till I insisted that they need to figure it out. Which they did. Do not make flight and travel plans till they tell you to.
4. Ask your consultant your questions. The consultant will get you your answers. Communication with the doctors is ok as we witnessed with others.
5. The consultant will send emails with a bunch of attachments. The attachments are forms that you will be filling out once you arrive to the clinic. Do your homework and read them. While at the clinic, things go fast and you will be able to fill out the forms quickly and comfortably.
6. You will have the option to use Xcell transportation or your own. You will need to communicate to the consultant your transportation plans. They charged 150 Euros, which we thought was priced high at 220 US. After riding in a taxi to our hotel, the math turned out to favor the Xcell transportation.
7. The consultant emails dates, times, and a scenario of what to expect. Our consultant gave us a scenario from getting of the plane, airport checkpoints, looking for our driver, to the “T”. He was precise.
8. Stick with the consultant! We had a change in our consultant mid way through the process and stayed in communication with the new consultant. They did a good job through the transition.
9. The consultant stays with you up to the day you leave and give’s you a farewell email with contact information and dates. Till that point, stay with the consultant.
10. Done with the consultant. The rest of the communication will be directly with the clinic in Germany.

Very simple and smooth. The longest time taken is making appointments and getting MRI’s completed, last minute follow up surgeries, etc. It took us about 3 months. Remembering that I have had 2 family members to get completed.

The next is all in Germany.
Day 1 for children is meeting with the anesthesiologist. Day 2 is the bone marrow extraction. Day 3 rest and wait anticipating outcome of cells. Day 3 you will have time to tour and play. Day 4 return of stem cells via LP. Day 5 and 6 rest and drink plenty of fluids. Kenneth and Reyna were not up to much but to hang around the hotel. Day 7 return home.

I suggest that you request for extra Vomex. Vomex is the nausea vomiting medication. Take it prior to take off for the flight home. Critical…. We learned the hard way.

We enjoyed our hotel. Lots of space. If you like spending 3+days lying around a small hotel room, you will have lots of choices. We did struggle with finding a hotel that accepted 4 to a room. We meet a Mother with her daughter that stayed at Mercer and found the room very small and uncomfortable. We spent almost 2 weeks looking for a hotel. Google earth works well. We used Google earth so much that we felt like we knew where everything was when we arrived. DVD’s and more DVD’s. Hotel TV is like antenna channels all in German.

Meals. Germany is pretty much closed on Sundays. Sundays for the majority is arrival day. Shopping and grocery stores are closed. They do have gas stations with snack/sandwich items that are open. I would suggest packing up some of those add hot water meals. First day arrival supplements that will hold you over till you can get to a restaurant or the hotel opens its restaurant. Take it from grandma, pack up foods. After a 16 hour day flying, those little meals came in handy till we figured out what we were doing. When you’re exhausted, this can be challenging. The driver told us a story of a family that found them selves taking a taxi to McDonalds and back. It cost them well over 50 dollars. The hotel food is expensive. We did do some grocery shopping which was very economical. Our driver also stopped at the gas station for us so that we could pick up additional snacks, sodas etc.. Between the clinic and hotel. If you stay at a hotel with a continental breakfast, make sure there is a restaurant or store near by.

Take smaller bills like 20’s with you. Our hotel would not exchange 100’s to Euros. The banks will take 100’s to exchange.

The last and most important is my 6 P’s. Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. Get ahead of your planning and arrangements prior to leaving. Last minute things could happen and make the leave a stressful one. I.e. I had a sinus infection that turned out to be a root canal and sinus infection the week before we left. On top of that, I do work as well as all of you. I think this made our departure pretty stress free with everything covered 2-3 weeks before leaving. As we all know traveling with special needs is and can be stressful. Better to be having a martini at midnight before the flight instead of running around trying to get things together.

I think that’s it. I hope this helps. I am sure all experiences will differ.

I invite any one and everyone to add to this. I know one thing for sure; I wish I had this kind of information prior to leaving. That is why I have written.