Gabriel’s ROP Blog

Gabriel had his last stem cells last week. We are now back at home. It’s been 3 days now. All had gone on very well. I didn’t update the blog as I am struggling to come up with a summary of our experience in China. I couldn’t decide on the conclusion, whether Gabriel had benefitted from the treatment or not. I have mixed feelings on reporting what I have seen as improvements. As usual, the improvements are little.

The day before we left, Gabriel went for his last therapy at the hospital. He had missed out a great deal of sessions. He had only been to the therapies 3 times, during his 4 weeks stay at the hospital. That day was his fourth time.

The therapist had found a great change in Gabriel. If we recall back the first time, he had a screaming, hyper sensitive child in his arms. That day, we were both astonished to find a calm, cheerful, very receptive child in the therapy room. Never would I had imagined that I would see Gabriel, my Gabby, lying there quietly, relaxed, and let a stranger touched, pulled, stroked and massaged him. He sat on the physio ball, apart of his usual drooping head, he sat erect and straight, balanced, without support, moving to the rhythm of the swaying ball. This was the first confirmed change by a professional, confirming all the observations I saw and doubted before. At the same time, rulling out familiarity as the factor in his improvement. The therapist, believing in his therapy technique and Chinese medicine, kept insisting that, should Gabriel had received more sessions, his improvement would have been much greater. He was confident that Gabriel will hold his head high more.

Then, on the way out of the hospital, during our journey to Beijing, my friends and I noticed that Gabriel held his head high up quite frequently. He tilted his head in such a way, as though he was listening and paying attention to a particular speaker. We did some vision game, and he reacted in a surprising quickness, searching, then a jerk of his head, as though surprised by the hands thrusted in front of his eyes. We all gasped. There were three of us. Each of us tried the game on him. Each time he reacted exactly the same way. May be, just may be, there was something there. May be we had all been imagining again. I am not sure, but will continue to try playing with him more. Who knows?

Other changes in him were that he learned and repeated words and gestures faster than usual. He wasn’t afraid of strangers. Basically, he no longer curled up into a ball in a new environment, and held himself straighter than before. This is the new Gabriel. I am discovering and learning to know this new and a more interesting boy.

The doctor told me that since he had started to respond to the treatment, hopefully, we will see more results in 1-3 months time. Stem cells move to treat the first and foremost serious weakness in the body first before moving to other areas. May be Cerebral Palsy is what the stem cells are treating now. Hopefully, when this is helped, it will go on to his vision. Furthermore, there is hope that, the reason why he can’t see, could be because of the cerebral palsy… Who knows?

Then again, am I hoping too much and see too much when it was in fact a ‘nothing’? Obviously, my husband didn’t see that much change in Gabriel. That is the main cause of my still undecided conclusion on Gabriel’s development. However he did see that Gabriel is more responsive and alert than before. And, what’s more important, and a constant pillar for me, he has more patience than me in waiting for more results in our son.

Go, go, stem cells. Go and do your wonderful job on Gabriel. And again, a little reminder to myself, be patient.

Best regards,
Asty

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 24th, 2009 at 4:02 pm and is filed under rop, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.