Brooke is still sick. I don’t like it here anymore, they are not examing Brooke enough to see what is wrong with her. Brooke will not eat or drink. She has this strange cough, not a normal congestion cough. I am very conserned and worried. It is so hard to communicate with the doctor’s and nurses, especially when the translator is not here. they had Brooke and an IV last night because she is not eating or drinking. I am very worried. Anyone who wants to contact me just4brooke@gmail.com. She is suppose to have her next injection tomorrow, I am not going to let her have a spinal just an IV injection. She is not well enough for the spinal. It has been an emotional rollercoaster for me. Brooke is not sleeping well either since she has been sick. I know there is something wrong with her and feel like I have no control. I am close to wanting to come home and see a normal doctor.
October 7th, 2008
Good evening everyone. Today is almost over. We get back to our schedule tomorrow of PT, standing therapy and electric wave therapy. I am glad. Seems like we have been sitting and chatting with everyone for days here in the unit because of the Holiday here. Wednesday is Brooke’s 3rd injection. This will be another spinal injection, I hope it goes better then the first one. We have Saturday and Sunday free, we are planning on going to the jimo market again or maybe go downtown and see some sights. It is hard to do things because Brooke, she gets tired easily, so we have to go by her body schedule too. Time goes by really slow here in China. Well we did make it to the post office today. I had the interpeter come with us because I wouldn’t know how to talk or fill out the form. They have to know what you are mailing before you put in the box and you have to use there boxes. I couldn’t mail one thing of candy to Brianna because it was of liquid form. That was different, like everything else here. We also did make it to the jimo market today which is located more toward downtown but did not stay long, because Brooke wasn’t feeling well. But I did manage to spend money in the short time we were there. Everything is pretty cheap at the market as long as you barter.
Good night everyone (morning to you)
Miss you all……
October 5th, 2008
Brooke had a rough evening. I woke up about 2:30 s.m. and she was awake. I went over and touched her, she was warm. I called the nurse and she took her temperature and Brooke was running a low fever. Then about 15 minutes later she vomitted. She was nodt feeling well. The nurse called the doctor because we have to let them know if she gets sick. It is 7 am now and she seems to be better. I have not tried feeding her yet. We could not leave the hospital yesterday and we had a free day and we might not be able to leave today. Feeling kind of confined and bored.
October 5th, 2008
I just wanted to send a quick note to all who are reading this blog and keeping up with our progress. Thanks for all the comments, love and prayers. We love reading all the comments. I an feel the love all the way here in China. Brooke really appreciates it too. Please keep following are journey and posting coments as well. And most of all keep up the love and prayers for our little Brooke…Love you all and we miss each and everyone. Take care……..till tomorrow
October 4th, 2008
Hello everyone. It is 5:30 at night here in China. We are cooking Hamburgers with a few people within the unit today. I hope it tastes okay. Brooke is much better today. No change from the stem cell treatment yet. We couldn’t leave the hospital today because of Brooke’s Treatment yesterday. After a spinal treatment you have to stay at the hospital for 24-48 hours. She was feeling a bit tired today and took about an hour nap, but otherwise she is fine. She is acting more like herself. A common side effect from valium is tiredness. She had a pretty tramatic day yesterday but made it through. Her next spinal is Wednesday. I hope it goes a bit better. I am a bit nervous about giving her valium because of the first time. I haven’t decided if I want to have it or not. I am scared to give it to her again. I might just hold her held down myself. If I can’t then I will have no choice to then. Not much happened today otherwise. I did go to the RT Mart (grocery store) to get meat, boy that was difficult. I want myself, while Diane stayed with Brooke. We have another free day tomorrow. Not sure if we can leave or not. We would like to get out. I would like to go to the jimo market shopping downtown. I am suppose to go the post office here in China tomorrow to mail my daughter a few things from China. ‘Oh yeah, Diane did get her KFC french fries today, she said the were delicious. Don’t forget if you can email me at just4brooke@gmail.com .
October 4th, 2008
Good morning all. It is 5:45 a.m. here in China. I can’t sleep anymore. I am thinking about Brooke’s Spinal Treatment this afternoon. I hope all goes well.
Diane is going to go to the market today and we are going to have a home cooked meal, as home cooked as we can get. I bought some chicken breast, potatoes to make mashed potatoes,
It is 4:00 and it has been 1 hour since Brooke had her injection. She has had a rough time with it. She is suppose to lie flat and still without raising your head for 5 hours. She was very eager to do that immediately, so they have her valium to help her to sleep. Then the doctor said I could give her Tylenol after the valium to help with headache if she has one. Then she started choking on the Tylenol, it was scary. I had to call the doctor and nurses back in. She is fine now she is sleeping, thank god. The nurses are staying with her and so am I. She was crying for awhile after the treatment, like a help me cry I hurt. She was saying my name alot, mama. She is resting good now, it was scary for a moment, the doctors and nurses are all talking chinese you do not know what there saying so that makes you nervous. They kept checking her pupils with a light, and talking chinese. They say everthing is fine just a reaction to the valium and that it is normal. I wonder if they gave her too much valium, 2mg.
She is starting to slowly wake up, but very out of it. We can give her some water in 4 hours. it is 5:30 pm and Brooke is waking up, she is watching Dora The Explorer DVD, she has to remain still for a few more hours, then we can give her some water. She seems to be alright. She may have some pain or headache after this treatment.
Le’ts hope we all have a good nite.
October 3rd, 2008
Hello all. Today Brooke had Electric Wave Therapy, PT, and Standing Therapy. Same routine. Tomorrow is our big day. Brooke will not be able to eat 6 hours before her treatment and 4 hours after her treatment. She will also have to lie still for 5-6 hours after the stem cell injection, this ought to be quite easy to do, not. We are very axious, excited and nervous for Brooke. We also can’t leave the hospital for at lest 24 hours afterwards. Quite alot of patients have pain in there lower back from the injections. I sure hope Brooke is okay. I know I am trying to help her but sometimes I feel like we are punishing her but I knwo we are only trying to help her.
Today, we went to this indoor shopping place. Everything is cheap here in China but I have not seen anthing that I have to have. Then we went to the market again. I do not like going to the market, it is so overwhelming. All packages are in Chinese. We have been a week and have eaten out everyday. I am finding the two hardest things about China is the communication and food. I said to my mother today, I am going to stay in my room where it is safe. I did find Chips Ahoy at the market today…..yeah cookies. I could go for a home cooked meal. We saw a KFC today near the market and Diane wanted french fries so bad, but it was on the other side of the street and crossing the street here in China is like have a death wish. So needless to say, Diane did not get her fries. We will get fries another day. Friday is Brooke’s second stem cell, this one is in the Spinal Cord, it will be 2:00 pm., am your time. They will put her to sleep, and then she will have lay still for 6 hours after her injection. They will give her medication to relax her after she wakes but, she can turn from side to side, but not raise her head.
The whole hospital has no hot water until Sunday. They did put up these hot water tanks in two of the of the empty rooms in the VIP Ward for the all of us to use, so they gave us a schedule to each family on the times they can use the hot showers, they are these small units that hang on the bathroom shower wall the water runs through them and instantly heats the water I don’t know what they are doing for the rest of the patients in the hospital.
October 2nd, 2008
Hello all. We all slept good last night. Everyone here at the hopital is so nice staff and patients. The doctor’s came in today and examined Brooke. Brooke had her Electric wave therapy, physical therapy and standing therapy. I do miss therapy back home. Brooke misses Diana. Stem cell still scheduled for Friday. i am a bit nervous about it, I don’t want her to get sick, or it to hurt her, etc. I am also excited. It just some people are getting sick from them. Today, we all went for a long walk in this beautful park near the hospital. The park was so big. I don’t think that handicapped people go out of their homes here. Nothing is really handicap asscessible. There were so many stairs at this park. We got starred at alot again, this is getting kind of old. They really stare at Brooke alot. Today, this guy and girl stopped us to touch Brooke, then he wanted to hold Brooke and his friend took a picture. I did as well. They are just so amazed with her.
The international buffet was very good. It was in a 5 star Hotel, that was absolutely gorgeous, I want to stay there instead. They did have some unusual chinese dishes and some food item that were safe. I stuck with the safe food. Brooke fell asleep and did not get to enjoy any of the food. I did bring her home some stuff though. We went with the group here at the hospital, that was nice. We took 3 different cabs.
Not much to write about today. Till next time all.
October 1st, 2008
Slept great today. I think we have all finally gotten on schedule to China time that is. We will be all screwed up again once we get back home. China is very different. I am learning a few words. I know hot to say, hello how are you and how much is that.
Today we did not have anything scheduled. It was a free day for us, yeah we need them every so often. We decided to go to the outdoor market. We decided to walk there. Great decision because we found this beautiful park along the way and got to see alot that we would not have if we would have taken a taxi. It is amazing what people drive around here. It looks like WWII vehicles, bikes, cycles.. I did not know if I was going to make it there alive though. I get a bit worried crossing the intersections here in China. There are no traffic lights and everyone just goes and honks. That is kind of what you have to do when you cross the road, just go. Well we made it there and it sure was something to see. There was the first area we were at that was seafood. There were people wheeling crates and boxes of seafood, boy did it smell bad. It was also very dirty. Diane said it was worse then Mexido. Then we walked in this warehouse. Which had vendor after vendor, vehicles after vechiles selling fruits and vegetables. It was amazing. You have to see the pictures/video to believe it. Then we found the outdoor food vendors, one of the first things that we seen was dog, yes dog. full heads with the teeth…..DISGUSTING. They also had the rest of the dog’s body too. There was flatened squid, pig heads, stuff we didn’t even know what it was. All I can say is you have to see it to believe it. I bought a few things. You have to barter with the vendors. They think that we are rich Americans. For instance, I wanted to buy Brooke these cute shoes, I asked the guy how much, yes I asked this in Chinese. the guy said 50 RMB (rmb is chinese money) , I said to much of course he did not understand, anyways I got him down to 20 RMB which is about 3-4 US dollars. Cheap. I like cheap. Debbie I have not been able find sild pj’s yet.
Well tonight we are going to dinner with the group. We are going to some international buffet and a hotel. This ought to be interesting. I will let you know about the buffet tomorrow or the next day.
September 30th, 2008
Hello, we finally got some pretty good sleep. We all probaly fell asleep at 7:00. We did wake up about 1:30 but fell back asleep shortly after, then slept till 5:15 or so. It is 6:00 at night right now. Tomorrow is a free day. Not sure what we are doing, we may go downtown. We may also go to a buffet with everyone. Not sure. There is an open market that we want to check out as well.
We had the afternoon free today and I finallly went to the RT Market(supermarket). That was quite the experience. You can’t read anything. If you buy meat, just exactly what part of the animal are you buying, seriously. It was very overwhelming. It is true Chinese do not eat the same as we do. It also took me about an hour to buy a camera charger for my camera (of course I forgot mine). You should see what I have to charge my camera battery. It is something that I would have never thought would be a charger for a camera battery. I will have to show you for those of you who are interested. After about 2 hours of shopping, this women came up to me in the market and said aren’t you from the hospital, for Brooke and I said yes. She was one of the student interpeters, thank god. She helped us. We grocery shopped for about 3 hours and did not get much.
I am getting worried about the spinal treatment for Brooke. There is one guy who has 2 more injections to go and just found out that he has a bacteria infection in his spine. Then there is this little boy Thomas, he is a year younger then Brooke, with CP and he not feeling good from it. I sure hope Brooke does not get sick or any infections. I guess we will find out Friday. After her injection we are not suppose to take her out of the hospital for 48 hours.
Till tomorrow everyone…Remember if you want to contact me via email, just4brooke@gmail.com
September 30th, 2008
Next Posts
Previous Posts
