We spent the morning at a place called “Qingdao Century Park”. It is absolutely gorgeous. He feels a lot like central park in NYC. Just full of trees and walkways and many activities throughout the park. We walked around for a while and we all enjoyed the fresh air. We probably saw 12-15 brides and their wedding parties there taking pictures so that seemed to distract some of the attention from us. However, there were a few photographers that happened to move their camera in our direction and take a picture of our family.
Pic 1- They seem to have added a lot of olympic theme statues and exhibit like things. Here the boys are all posing in front of a huge wall that has pictures of most of the olympic events and some names. Notice the flowers in the pots along the wall. We’ve found this is very common throughout Qingdao. For some reason they just leave the flowers in pots and display them without planting them. Interesting.
Pic 2- Bradley found a “walker” that works perfectly as we strolled through the park
Pic 3- None other than THE Kung Fu Panda.
Pic 4- We thought this statue was really cool. It has the 3 women in the colors gold, silver, and bronze standing in front of the olympic logo. Notice that all 3 women are different looking and the chinese women is the gold one. ha, at least I thought it was funny
May 29th, 2009
It’s been a couple of days since our post and I’m sorry about that, but not much has happened around here. We had a “normal” day of therapy on Wednesday and we had today off. We were informed on Wednesday by the hospital staff that the hot water was going to be turned off for two days! I’m not really sure why this seems to happen so often (twice in the full week we’ve been here) but whatever. Beike (the stem cell company) offered to put all the families up in a hotel for 1 or 2 nights because they have recognized that everyone was tired of the water situation thing. We knew we had thursday off so we had already planned to go and get a hotel for the night and get away. A lot of the families here have told us that it’s the best thing they have done for themselves. It’s VERY cheap to get a hotel and its nice to get away from the hospital.
We ended up going to the Holiday Inn that’s just down the street. We decided to go there because it had a swimming pool and we knew the boys would love that. It was a beautiful hotel, five star. We walked in the room and the first thing I did was take my shoes off and walk on the carpet, yummy. We went to the pool and swam for a little while. The boys LOVED that. We had an American dinner at the restaurant there and then spent some time just hanging out in the room. I told jason that it didn’t even feel like we were in China. It felt a lot like a fun family vacation. About an hour after I said that, I was eating a yummy quesadilla and I looked at him and said, “I think I really like China, I’m getting used to it.” He laughed at me and said, “You’re in a five star hotel… this isn’t China.” Whatever, I liked it.
We had a wonderful day this morning. We did more swimming and ate pancakes! I think the boys loved that… they’ve missed their “pancake saturday” with dad this last week. We made it up to them.
Today was a holiday in China, it’s called “Dragon Boat”. The staff made some food for all the patients/families and even gave the kids some gifts. It was very kind! We are surrounded by wonderful people. We got to the party late because we were at the hotel, but we did have a couple bites of the food they made. It wasn’t bad, and I’m quite picking about trying new things. Tyler wouldn’t try anything, not even chocolate!
Tomorrow Bradley has another IV at 4:30 in the evening. We’re hoping this one goes as slick as the last one. Other patients here have seen little bits of improvements but nobody wants to get too excited because there’s still a long ways to go and they want to be absolutely certain that its definite improvement.
The boys are doing well, both have fully adjusted to this new time schedule and lifestyle. It involves a lot of entertaining and creativity on mine and jason’s part but we’re all doing well. We’ll update more tomorrow night after we do his 2nd IV. Love to all,
Jason, Evonne, Tyler, and Bradley
We’ve changed the picture size on our camera but for some reason still can’t upload them here onto the blog. Very frustrating… hang in there with us, we’ll figure it out. The boys are still as cute as they were when we left, no worries.
Ahah… got it. We’ll take more tomorrow and send more your way. Told you they were cute, especially when they’re both sleeping, right?!
May 28th, 2009
This has become the theme of our adventures out. It’s funny because we have been trying to teach Tyler that it’s not nice to stare at people. But, with what we deal with here it seems a little unfair to enforce it! Today we were at the Lotte Mart and people just love to see us. haha I think Bradley’s fire red hair is what really draws attention. Along with that, he loves to scream in short little bursts over and over again. Everything is is so big and open that he loves to hear the echos in every building we go into. It’s quite a nightmare. Jason and I find ourselves repeating the words from the ”Madagascar” penguins to them and we always have a good little chuckle, “just smile and wave boys, just smile and wave”. Its very funny.
China is growing on us, just a little bit. Today was a good day and we are continuing to adjust and are beginning to enjoy our time here. There are just a couple things that I don’t think we’ll ever truly enjoy. We’re still getting used to the “smell” of China. It’s not too bad but there are definitely little “pockets” of odor everywhere. We’ll be walking along and all is fine and them BAM it hits and it is SMELLY. The elevators are one of the worst places. We have to take an elevator every time we go in and out of the hospital. We are on the 8th floor and the elevator is rather slow. Today we were in the elevator heading down and Bradley says “Mom, (“what Bradley”)… it stinks. jason and I just giggled under our breaths because we didn’t know if anyone in the elevator understood what he said but we thought it was hilarious.
Bradley did GREAT with his treatment today. Yeah!! We were truly nervous about getting the IV in and having him sit still for that amount of time. We prayed and prayed that it’d be good and it was awesome. The nurses here are amazing. I am so impressed with how thorough and good they are at everything they do. They whipped the IV line into his foot like it was nothing. He went all morning/afternoon with it in and didn’t bother it at all. Which is truly a miracle since we all know how sensitive he is to touch and strange things on his body. Then at 5 o’clock this evening we went into a little room and they hooked up his IV bag that contained the stem cells and the NGF (nueral growth factor). It’s a yellowish color and looks a lot like urine. (there’s a visual for ya). The minute they hooked up the IV, Bradley’s eyes got sleepy and he was out the entire time. He just layed on Jason’s lap and it was a breeze. What a blessing!!!
Keep on praying… we send our love to all you at home. Till tomorrow, Chao!
(Still can’t figure out how to load the pics, the files are too big, but they are coming soon…)
May 25th, 2009
Another day down and we’re already feeling a little more adjusted. We had a free day today with no therapy or treatments. We woke up, early I might add (5:00) not by choice, and were able to find a church in downtown Qingdao. A sister in the branch picked us up here at the hospital and took us down to church. It was held in a member’s apartment and it was so awesome. To see more American’s was so relieving. It was an experience I’ll never forget. We all did well until the 2nd hour when the Primary portion was in Korean. Haha, the boys checked out pretty quickly and we had some members help us catch a taxi back to the hospital.
Driving here is CRAZY!! Who knows what the laws are. Everyone just honks (in a kind way actually) and just goes for it. Seems even crazier than driving in NYC.
Bradley has his first IV treatment tomorrow and we’re anxious to get that out of the way. It’s nice to get past all of the unknowns. I think the worst part of the whole thing will be getting an IV in him. This first time around they will leave the IV in for 24 hours. They do this just in case Bradley has some sort of reaction to the Stem Cells, they’ll be able to have quick access to fixing it. I’m pretty sure he won’t be too happy about that, but he’ll have to get over it!!
Tyler’s adjusting a little bit better today. I think he’s still tired and trying to figure out what this is all about. With that being said, we’re still glad he’s here and we’re all experiencing this together. Having our boys with us makes it easier to be so far away from home. He’ll be happier and more himself in no time, let’s hope!
We send our love to all. The boys have both talked about wanting to go to Grandma/Papa’s house and Grandma/Grandpa Davis’ house today. They miss you all and we do too. We are learning to love this place and are continuing to make good friends. We’ll get the photos up and going hopefully by tomorrow- Good night!
May 24th, 2009
Hey all,
We made it and we’re so glad to be done with 26 hours of traveling. The kids were awesome, whew! It still felt never ending and we’re glad its over. They are very concerned about the “Pork Flu” over here in china! When we landed in Beijing we couldn’t get off the plane right away. Two guys came in with masks on and this contraption that looked like a “men in black” gun. They went through the entire plane and pointed it at each persons head. It took our temperature. They wanted to make sure no one had a fever or they quarantined them. Then again in the immigration area of the airport they had you stand in line to pass through and while you stood there they had some infrared cameras video cameras that were taking everyones temperature. When someone’s temperature was too high, the computer would start beeping and they’d pick that person out of line and take them… somewhere?! yikes! It was serious CSI like stuff. Some hospital staff picked us up at the airport and it has been all smiles and kindness since. We are in the biggest room and we’ve done our best to make it comfortable and our own. It’s quite different here, obviously. The city is very pretty and is green and lush. There’s a Market right across the street that is very convenient. it’s a lot like a glorified Wal-Mart. It has 3 levels, one is home furnishings, one is a grocery store, and the other level is clothes/perfume/toys. We took a little trip over there this afternoon and were able to find all the little things that we realized we needed. We got charged 30 cents per plastic bag at the checkout which was a little strange.
Bradley is doing pretty well. The doctors came in yesterday after we arrived and did a quick overall evaluation. They checked his eyes and reviewed his past medical history and set up a plan for the next few weeks. This morning they drew his blood and I was too emotional to stay in the room. jason stayed and helped but it was still tough to do. He will have his first IV Stem Cell Treatment on monday and another one on Friday. The “off” days consist of 2 hours of therapy in the morning along with 2hours in the afternoon. They planned on doing acupuncture but Jason and I told them we didn’t want that. Imagine poking little needles all around Bradley’s eyes for an hour. yeah right!! We didn’t feel good about it, so they changed it to acupressure. It’s just a deep pressure massage like we do at home. He did well with therapy today. His therapists name is Andy and he is very nice. I can already tell that he really likes Bradley. He loves to smell him and gave him a couple of kisses throughout the session. It was very sweet and a little weird too! Bradley did well but I’m sure he’ll miss all his wonderful therapists back at home.
We’re trying to adjust to this new life we’re going to live the next few weeks. It’s been a little rough and jason and I both are doing our best to stay positive. We just need to get a little time under our belt and then I think it’ll be good. We’ve already met wonderful people who are foreigners also and here for treatments. It seems we have an instant bond because we’re all in this together. Some have told us that they had a really hard time at the beginning of their stay and wanted to leave and now after a couple of weeks feel adjusted and comfortable here. We’ll get there. Tyler is already asking if he can play with “his new friends”. The Chinese people love to stare and come right up in the kids faces when we’re out! You see them tap their friends on the shoulder and say something and point. We seem to draw quite the crowd. We’re celebrities around here!
We miss our family/friends dearly but know that we need to be here and can’t wait to see what progress will come. Love to all~ Jason, Evonne, Tyler and Bradley
May 23rd, 2009
Only a couple more days to go and we’re off on an adventure of a life time. We want everyone to know how much we love them and appreciate the overwhelming amount of support that we feel. If it be the Lord’s will, we will see miracles and be able to give Bradley a better quality of life. Until we get to China, know that we love you all and will miss you dearly… Ni-Hao!
“And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”
“…and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam. He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing. (John 9:1-3, 6-7)
May 19th, 2009
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