James’s Ataxia Blog

A teaching exercise

March 11th, 2009

Jim went to physical therapy from 8:30 am until  9:15 am after which a team of 7 doctors came in the room.  The first doctor was a professor who was accompanied by a senior doctor, a junior doctor and 4 student doctors one of which was photographing the session.  The photographer was a beautiful young woman.   The professor had Jim doing a number of activities and completing a number of tests, all the while instructing.    Ths session lasted approximately one hour.  At the end of the session the doctors concluded that Jim’s early diagnosis of spinocerabellar ataxia was incorrect.  They are diagnosing motor neuron disease which is the diagnosis we received from the last neurologist we visited.  They are going to xray both of his shoulders to determine why he is losing strength in his arms.  This afternoon he will go to acupuncture and then electric wave therapy.  We also received the schedule for stem cells.  He will receive the first treatment on Friday and it will be given IV to ensure that he has no reaction.  The next five will be given by spinal injection.  After each spinal injection he must lay flat with no pillow for 6 hours.  If he raises his head it could cause very severe headaches.

It is a law in China that foreign visitors must register at the police station.  We were taken by our interpreter to the local police station yesterday.  They checked our passports and visa and I guess we are now registered locally.

The interpreters come in each day at 10:00 am to take your order for lunch and again about 3:00 pm to take an order for dinner.  Pizza seems to be real popular. There are several pizza places to choose from.  We have been ordering in mainly Chinese food and really enjoying it.  We can also go out for lunch or dinner if we have no appointments.  The interpreters also took us yesterday to a huge market (2 floors) and we purchased a few essentials.   We take a cab to the market which costs about $1.00 each way.  The nurses write the name of the market in Chinese characters that you just show to the taxi driver.  We carry a card with us with the name of the hospital on it so we can get back.  The market has the most beautiful display of fresh fruits and vegetables and also has a wonderful meat and fish display.  There is a kitchen on our floor and we can use it to cook our own meal whenever we desire.  What an experience.

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