So sorry for the huge lapse in my posting. Not only have we been very busy getting our lives back to normal, but we are at somewhat of a plateau as far as Dave’s progress goes. This can’t be taken as bad news - it is just that everything is about the same as when I last wrote. Dave still has not used his cane since returning home and the only time he uses his brace is when he has an extreme amount of walking to do while at work. Yesterday, a friend of his at work commented on how much better Dave’s walking was. It is so great to see that others are noticing improvements!
We continue to wait for the additional progress of the stem cells that were injected into Dave’s spine. Those should be kicking in around the first of November.
Dave’s energy level has most definitely been helped by the stem cells. I am actually having a hard time keeping up with him! He celebrated a birthday yesterday, but seems much younger than before! (He is still waiting for a thick mass of hair to appear on his head but might have to have a bit of patience in waiting for that to happen).
All of our floormates in China who we have stayed in contact with have seen some positive results from their stem cell therapies - hooray!
Thanks to all of you who have been reading the blog and sending your comments!
October 12th, 2007
It has been a few days since our last post. No, we have not been in a deep sleep. Actually, we both are pretty much back to normal now. Dave has gone the last 6 days without using his brace or cane. He certainly is not ready to run a marathon or even compete in a little foot race but it is great to see that his confidence is up enough to not have to rely on the brace or cane. He is also doing some driving without using his hand controls. His level of energy amazes me - he has not taken his energizer nap in 5 days. He is pretty consistent with his therapy exercises, at least when he is not out of town on business. His backward walking is so good - he almost does better walking backwards than forward.
We have been in contact with some of our China friends since their return to their homelands and will continue to follw their progress. The general concensus is that we all are looking forward to what happens in the next couple of months! We will keep you updated!
September 19th, 2007
It is amazing how much sleep those tiny little stem cells require. Last night Dave went to bed, just to “rest”, at 6:00 and never moved again until 6:00 this morning. I had to check several times to see if he was still breathing! At least one could say that he is now sleeping through the night.
Dave continues to go to work each day and tries not to wear his leg brace or use his cane, whenever possible. Due to his increased need for sleep, we are only doing his 50 minute therapy program every other day. He does do his morning exercises faithfully at 4:30 a.m. every day for 20 minutes.
When he is back to his normal waking hours, we should have more to report on.
September 12th, 2007
Well, yesterday we were awake for a total of seven hours. Our stamina is definitely improving! We actually went to visit our oldest son and his wife for a couple of hours. They moved into a new house while we were in China so this was our chance to visit it as their “home”. While there, Dave practiced his walking backwards out in the street and did a super job. (Don’t worry, it is a very quiet, dead end street so it wasn’t too dangerous). Our son, David, was very surprised to see that Dave was walking so well without his brace on, and without his cane! The circulation in Dave’s feet continues to be excellent.
Not much else to report on since we are spending so much time sleeping!
We still keep in touch daily with many of the friends we made over in China!
September 10th, 2007
Just want to let everyone know that while we were in China, NBC news did two stories on patients who had stem cell treatments at our hospital in Hangzhou. One news report was on baby Cameron who I mentioned in an earlier posting and the other was on a little girl from Wisconsin. After we left China, ABC was at our hospital doing another story about the stem cell treatments. We aren’t sure when that story will be aired but we are so excited that finally, more people in the U.S. will be able to hear of the good that these treatments are doing for some devastating conditions!
As for Dave, he is back to work now. We are, however, feeling more effects of the jet lag from our trip home than we did from the trip to China. Hopefully, as we feel less and less tired, Dave will be able to see some more positve improvement in his ability to walk without the aid of his brace or a cane.
It has been fun for us to stay in touch with those of our friends in China who have Skype. We have even been able to see them as we talk, thanks to the use of web cams. They are able to keep us updated on the progress of fellow patients. This technology is great in helping bridge the distance between here and China!
September 8th, 2007
We arrived safely back in the United States Monday evening. The flight was about 13 hours and pretty uneventful. Tuesday morning we woke up bright and early at 3:00 a.m. (this is the same time we were waking up in China). Tuesday was not a very productive day as we seemed to take hourly naps. By 4:00 p.m. we finally got up and had breakfast. Then we ran to the store to buy the supplies needed to continue with Martin’s physical therapy program. Therapy will be started today because we were too tired to do anything after returning home from the store yesterday!
Dave’s exercise ‘gym’ is set up in our bedroom and consists of his normal 3 machines that he uses every morning. To this we have added a multipurpose weightlifting bench and wrist and ankle weights that he will use to do some of Martin’s exercises on. The physical therapy program will be done every afternoon or early evening. We are very dedicated to continue with Beike’s Stem Cell treatment plan which is a nice combination of Eastern and Western medicine. It is our goal to give the new stem cells the most optimum environment to grow in!
Exercise Machines Weights and Bench
September 6th, 2007
Today is a very bittersweet day for us! We are excited to return home to our family and friends, but in the process of doing so, we have to say good bye to some very special people here in China. It surprises me how such strong bonds and friendships can be formed in only 23 days! We have met some amazing people over here, both fellow patients and hospital & Beike staff. We were given the warmest reception by the Doctors and nurses and their kindness and caring made this feel like
September 3rd, 2007
This is our last day to spend with all of our new friends at the hospital. Many of us went to brunch at the hotel again. As always, it was wonderful! It was not a pretty day, as it rained all day. This was our only day of continuous rain. The good news is that it was a slight bit cooler outside due to a very small breeze!
In the afternoon, Martin took us to the bookstore so we could buy acupuncture maps of the body and a pressure point map of the feet. We find this a very interesting way of treating certain diseases. Afterwards we went to a very authentic Chinese restaurant where we let Martin choose all of our entrees. Everything was pretty delicious.
The day couldn’t go by without Dave doing his physical therapy - he is making such good progress in this area that we need to keep at it every day. I did read his body afterwards and let him have a quick nap before taking one more trip with Johnny to Time Square.
Our evening entertainment was another trip to an upscale footbath. This one provided foot massage, foot cupping, leg and arm massage, back and shoulder massage, hair wash and head massage, ear cleaning and oxygen treatment. Nine of us were there for 3 hours with Sally, one of our nurses. We even checked e-mails and played ping pong there after the treatments. It cost only $15.00 per person. What a great way to relax before our long flight tomorrow!
Pictures today include a statue arrangement that was by the bookstore and a very cute Chinese baby that was waving good bye to us
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September 3rd, 2007
This was Dave’s last day of therapies - which means no more acupuncture (at least not in China)! I know Dave will pursue finding a good acupuncturist in the U.S.
Martin did his final evaluation on Dave today. It was the same evaluation he did when we arrived in China. It measured Dave’s balance, muscles, etc. His score when we first arrived was a 46. Today it was a 55, which is a 20 percent improvement. Good job, Dave! On our first day here, he could only stand for 5 seconds with his eyes closed before tipping over. Today he stood straight as an arrow, not even swaying, for over one minute. His muscle in his weak leg is now 1.5cm bigger. Of couse we don’t know for sure if these improvements are from the stem cells or the physical therapy but we all like to think it is a combination of both!
We saw an amazing follow-up that was done on baby Cameron, who was our neighbor here in the hospital. He and his parents left last Tuesday and were greeted at the airport by NBC news. They filmed him at his house now, about one week after returning home. He is able to see now and can reach out and pick up his toy train. His eyes are no longer randomly darting all over and he can focus pretty well. This is such good news. His parents had been told by his Doctors at home that there was nothing that could be done to help Cameron see. They were told to make sure that they worked hard on developing his other senses. It was also great to see that Melissa walked off the plane still very pregnant and not carrying two babies instead of one! The baby can now be born back in Florida!
Our time here is down to the final two days. While it will be so nice to get home to our families and friends, I can already see how difficult it will be to leave everyone here. Thank goodness for e-mail and skype so we can still keep in touch!
Johnny wants to buy a scooter so today we went with him to look at them. Dave wants to make sure he has a good understanding of how to ride them and how they work, as far as charging the battery, etc. Johnny will have to take out a mortgage in order to buy the scooter. The deluxe scooter, complete with anti theft siren costs $298 U.S.
Pictures this day are of: Johnny and scooter, scooter sales girls, crazy traffic viewed from inside taxi, delivery vehicle (scooter), traffic lights - one that indicates how many seconds you have to cross the street before being run over!), and a family of three on their scooter - I was trying to get a family of four but didn’t see one today.
September 2nd, 2007
This was officially to be a day of rest for Dave and the day began that way. However, we have now completely run out of our ‘provisions’ that we brought from home (we had one granola bar left that we split for our breakfast and if need be, we have six packets of ketchup that I can convert into tomato soup). We decided to venture out to a new supermarket. We were confident we could make this trip by ourselves. Things went pretty well until time to purchase our items. A large sign at the cash registers, printed all in English said “We accept the following credit cards - MasterCard, Visa, American Express”. Wanting to save our remaining Chinese money for the taxi ride to the airport on Monday, we thought we’d pay with our Visa card. WRONG! They only accept Chinese credit cards. Why would the sign be printed in English and why were the credit card names in English? There was not a single employee who could speak English, but they were all very good at shaking their heads no. I guess we still have a bit of a language barrier when we don’t have a Chinese speaking friend with us! We also had to buy Dave a new electric razor because we burned his up by forgetting to plug it into the converter - that was our only electric catastrophe and Dave saw the smoke before our smoke detector went off so at least we didn’t create a panic here at the hospital.
The afternoon was spent resting until Mrs. Martin decided that the new stem cells were still in training and needed their physical workout…regardless of Dave’s day of rest. We went through Dave’s whole physical therapy program in faster than normal time. Even though he might not realize it, his muscles are getting stronger, a long with an improvement in his balance. I can actually see a little muscle forming in Dave’s right calf where the muscle was atrophed. Before leaving here I will have to consult with Martin as to when to increase the weights and repetitions without causing harm to Dave’s muscles.
Pictures today include Dave with Dr. Mike, Martin doing a moxie treatment on himself for a bad stomach and a few pictures taken here in the hospital…our home, sweet home for the past few weeks.
Dr. Mike & Dave Martin & Moxie Dave’s Room Sign
September 1st, 2007
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