Aug 4-Art and his blue 'angels' gpoing for stem cell treatment # 8
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Neighbors from the 20th floor
[/caption]As we approach our final week, we are excited with anticipation for our return to clean, cool, fresh air and fresh garden vegetables.Saturday, we decided to return to the New Century Grand hotel for their buffet. Ken and his wife Christine from Saskatchewan and her sister Cathy
joined us ,where we celebrated Ken’s ( Check his M.S. Blog ) birthday. It was a lovely evening with a refreshing light rain. We feasted after a long week where Marguerite and I were afflicted with some kind of gastro parasitic evil little bugs. ( I believe we are all going to need the Ionic Foot Bath to zap those nasty little parasites!) Luckily Art has a strong stomach and was not affected. He enjoyed a rather tempting, delicious plate of roast beef . Viv and I enjoyed the fresh sea food and desert of course (tiramasu ! yummy !),
unfortunately ,Art woke up Sunday with a sore throat and is back on antibiotics. Dr. Michael did blood work; it appears his wbc’s are 15,000 and kcl is down. He’s on Azithromycin and more Chinese Traditional Medicine for his cold. I assured Art after extra kcl given IV and more TCM he should once again be re energized. The best treatment, of course, will be his Number 8 treatment of stem cells to be given at 2:30 pm today.
He had no elevated temperature during this bout of a cold, so will be allowed his 8th stem cells infusion. Something is going around, as many of the staff have sore throats and run around wearing masks. No one stays home here, even if they are ill..
All of the 20 th floor of the hospital is dedicated to stem cell treatment.There are 13 rooms for patients. All the nurses and staff are unbelievably friendly. They make a great effort to learn some English, more successfully then our efforts at Chinese.
The funniest term they use is on doing daily vital signs. A very pretty little Chinese nurse will usually ask Art: “Have you had a ‘caca’ today?”. We’ve been trying to get them to use a different term, but to no avail . A good chance came today when they were going over a list of English phrases ,one of which was ‘Bowel Movement’. Viv took the opportunity to explain that we only say BM not the whole thing. After reassuring them that most people would understand BM, they repeated ‘BM’ and if they do not answer correctly will say ‘caca’.
We said our farewells to some good friends we met while here. I’ve mentioned good looking 16 yr old Zachary with Friedrick’s Ataxia. He was quite happy as his thumbs are once again functioning at full capacity (enabling him to play his electronic games once again.), his toes have straighten out and his speech is very clear ,back to normal. His gait, although not perfect, has improved with his body having better balance and able to walk with less of a lurch. He was wishing for more, but realizes he must have patience and the cells will continue to do their repair job. Zach,his mother Bernice from Windsor ,Ontario and Aunt Janice from Halifax were very warm, friendly French Canadian people .
John from Romania ,the Lawyer with Muscular Dystrophy was chatting with us; he likes Art’s power chair. He has had M.D. since he was one and a half years old. He speaks about his friend in Romania who came here last year. His friend had Muscular Dystrophy and was unable to walk. After stem cell treatment here he went home and progressed to walking by himself ,though not perfectly, within 5 months. John is hopeful that he will have some similar results and intends to return within the year if he has success in gaining strength to his body, especially legs and arms.
A interesting note is that MD patients cannot receive stem cells via Lumbar Puncture due to the problem of being unable to be flat on their back for six hrs. Another problem may be the difficulty of accesssing the right spot on spine due to MD. Instead, the stem cells are delivered under general anaesthetic. It is injected into the muscle via multiple little injections into the legs and arms . This method appears to be quite effective and not painful on awaking, due to the delivery having been given in multiple small doses.
Hope you enjoyed our pictures , I got carried away . Note to Don The silk pictures belong to Cathy and Christine, who now are in the process of buying a new suitcase ( the result of many trips to the silk market) .
