BY ANITA MANDALAY
Karyn Brode, better known locally as KB, is a woman well known to the community, having lived in San Jose for many years. KB, now in her mid-70s, has earned her living variously as an interior designer, a furniture store entrepreneur, and most recently as a purveyor of Kangen water, a system of filtered water that turns water into ionized alkaline and makes it acidic through electrolysis. It’s supposed to be good for your health. She’s best known as the water lady, as she hustles this water all over Southern Baja.
One day a couple of years ago she bumped her toe. Then, somehow that bumped toe started spreading up her leg! Now she had a bumped toe on her shin! Then it spread to her other leg! KB didn’t know what was happening to her, but she took it upon herself to treat it by jumping into a chlorinated swimming pool. But still, the awfulness continued spreading up her legs. So she jumped into the ocean thinking the saltwater might help. Nope. Might be time to see a doctor, KB, and stop making these not-so-wise medical decisions.
So she took herself to Los Angeles where she’s from, and walked, (at this point, hobbled), into USC Medical Center. By this time, her lower legs had big, ugly sores on them, majorly ugly, several inches across, and spewing out something stinky and awful. It was like a pus, which is even an ugly word that conjures up ugliness.
The doctors at USC shrugged and suggested she amputate them to keep the sores from getting deeper and continue their climb up her legs. (Well, doctors don’t shrug. We dramatized that a little. And for sure they don’t shrug when delivering that kind of news.)
By this time KB was running out of money, although her Medicare paid for her care. She was renting a small depressing apartment in downtown LA to be near USC and continuing to pay the rent on her apartment here in San Jose.
So, her friends here started a GoFundMe account for her, raising enough to support her while the United States doctors whacked off her legs. As you can imagine, she was very depressed. She wanted to stay in Los Cabos, as she always thought she would finish out her days here, but how could she scoot around in a wheelchair the way these streets and sidewalks are built? And ADA ramps? Forget about it. She would have to remain in the United States, away from all her close friends, and how would she support herself if she couldn’t deliver her health water?
She came back to Cabo to think.
Since she was here and since she knows Barry Russel, she went to his PRMedica clinic in San Jose. PRMedica is known for medical tourism and best known for preventive and regenerative therapy. They are local pioneers in stem cell therapy and they administer all sorts of therapies.
They give intravenous infusions of mesenchymal stem cells, the real deal stem cells, not the prp stuff where they haul your own tired blood out, whirl it around, and inject it back into you. No, for stem cell therapy they use real placenta they harvest from pregnant women in a lab in Guadalajara. Squeaky clean lab. From squeaky clean mothers. That’s why they go all the way to Guadalajara.
You can also walk into PRMedica with no appointment and get a Meyers intravenous cocktail infusion to pep you up or an intravenous infusion for an immunity boost. And, while you’re in the Lazy Boy chair, why not get chelation therapy and flush out those heavy metals you’re dragging around with you?
Back to KB:
She hooked up with Dr. Víctor Ocegueda. Dr. Victor received his medical degree in Nayarit. He then traveled to Guadalajara where he earned a master´s degree in Medical and Surgical Emergencies. It was here that he did a deep dive into hyperbaric medicine and management of chronic non-healing wounds. He was just the guy that KB needed, as she had two of the mother of all wounds. Dr. Victor is also certified by the University of Texas in regenerative orthopedics and holds national certifications on Stem Cell Therapies for Chronic Diseases, Injury Management with Cell Therapies and Ozone Therapy.
Dr. Victor went right to work healing KB’s wounds that now looked so bad, we’re not even going to show you the pictures she carries around on her phone. Dr. Victor told us they were so thick and hardened that he couldn’t get a knife through them. He had to use a saw.
He opened them up and did his hocus pocus on them, (you don’t think he’s going to give away his recipe, do you? Well, he did, but we didn’t understand it.) He explained that he studied wound therapy so his entire training was just what the doctor ordered for KB.
Within a few weeks, she was substantially better and had already abandoned the cockamamie notion the USC docs had of sawing off her legs. When we ran into her at PRMedica, she was scooting around unaided, but we gotta tell you, she was in her house slippers.
When asked how KB started on this downward spiral, Dr. Victor shrugged and said he will never know for certain how it all started, but did caution that when you have a badly stubbed toe and the stubbing starts climbing up your leg, don’t try to treat it yourself. And stay away from your dog. Turns out Dr. Victor picked a lot of white dog fur out of the wounds.
So how is KB now? Scooting around pretty well. Did she get rid of the dog? Nope. But she did buy a vacuum cleaner to suck up the dog fur flying around her house, and she’s keeping her house slippers on so she won’t be stubbing her toes again. And she’s got Dr. Victor at PRMedica watching her back.
