Posts filed under 'ms'
Well we were back on track today, with Physical therapy, occupational therapy, acupuncture and electric wave treatment.
It was a little cooler today so I was able to get Doug out for a nice long walk. We stopped a KFC on the way back for lunch.
Tomorrow is stem cell treatment day. This will be the 3rd lumbar puncture. Doug is out doing his second round of occupational therapy of the day. The therapists are gone for the day but he can do that on his own. I know that he is going to want do a little physical therapy tonight so he will need my assistance with that. Just working hard hoping for results.
So for now, good night and God Bless……Dar & Doug
May 29th, 2008
Not much to report today. Doug was unable to get out of bed until noon today after having the bone marrow extraction yesterday. He got up after the 24 hours and is doing fine. He had acupuncture and electric wave this afternoon and is now doing Occupational Therapy. He should be back on a full schedule tomorrow. Doug is only the third patient to have the bone marrow stem cell treatment done at this hospital. The lab was opened here after the hospital in Shenyang was close to foreigners.
There are 2 other Canadian patient here, Justin, 18 months old form Montreal being treated for SMA (Spinal Muscular Atrophy) and Maureen from Calgary being treated for MS. Alexander a 2 year old from California is being treated for Cerebral Palsy, LouAnn from Wisconsin being treated for a head injury suffered in a snow boarding accident and Alice from North Carolina with MS. There are patients here from Hungary and Romania that I do not know what they are being treated for. A little boy came in yesterday from Australia, we haven’t met them yet but, I believe he is being treated for ONH the same as our friend Devin. There are also several Chinese patient that I do not know what they are being treated for except the young boy that I met in the elevator is being treated for his vision. It is so sad to see the children but they are fighters and will do just fine.
It rained all night and most of today so we didn’t venture out at all. Hoping for a brighter day tomorrow, love to all…. Dar & Doug
May 28th, 2008
We started out in occupational therapy and were called back to the room as it was time for Doug’s back to be shaved(from mid back right down to the back of his knees). A nurse on each side giggling that he was very hairy (Chinese people do not have hair on their bodies). Doug says they are lucky they didn’t have to deal with Trottie’s fur pants!!!!!!!!!
Then off to Physical Therapy, no sooner finished there and the nurse was in to start the IV and he was scooted off to the operating room. All went well and he was back in the room by lunch time. He has to stay in bed for 24 hours. He can sit up but as one of the nurses said “no feet on wood”.
I slipped out a couple of times today with other caregivers, so have some pictures to attach.
Thanks once again for all the comments, Love to all
May 27th, 2008
Hello again… our day started with OT and PT. Doug took a fall in the shower on Saturday(he says he is out of practice falling since his drinking days!!!!) and that has set his PT back a little. He injured both knees and twisted the sore ankle, so they are treating him with Chinese medicine. It is in a heating pad and is quite smelly. They didn’t work him as hard in PT but hopefully by tomorrow he will be back in full swing.
They have drawn blood in preparation for tomorrows bone marrow extraction. He will be under anesthetic so will have no pain when the bone marrow is extracted from his hip. It will be cleansed and cultured for one week and then injected into his spine. This is so that his own stem cells are administered into his body. The count of stem cells in the bone marrow is much higher than that of the umbilical cord.
Both the doctors and I have noticed that Doug’s shaking is starting to decrease. So keep those prayers coming our way. In the doctors visit this morning they said that they noticed a decrease in the shaking. A young Chinese boy was clapping for Doug during PT this morning. I met him the elevator when I was going for my walk and to my surprise in very good English he ask where I was from. I will have to talk to him a little more tomorrow to find out his story. I have seen him walking the hallways with his mother. I believe she is the one getting treatment.
I will sign off for today, love to all………..D&D
We are on the top floor of the curved section, second set of windows from the right.
They have each patients name and where they are from by the room number outside each door.
May 26th, 2008
After signing off last night we went and said bye to 3 gals from New Jersey. Devin Riley, her mom DeAnn and grandmother Judy. Devin was a patient here, she suffers from ONH (Optic Nerve Hypoplasia). She has no vision in her right eye and limited vision in her left eye. When she left here she was seeing light in her right eye, so hopefully the stem cells continue to grow and she will see. Devin is a 20 year old with a very powerful voice, expect to see her on the Country charts some day. Her motto is “Dream Big”.
After doing Occupational Therapy today we went out for a bit. Strolled through the park again and received lots of stares….we are foreigners. One little guy was waving to us and threw us a kiss, pretty darn cute.
I was wrong about the no therapy on Saturday. Doug just wasn’t scheduled for any this Saturday. We got his schedule for next week and has therapy on Saturday. He will have bone marrow extracted on Tuesday and another Stem cell treatment (Lumbar puncture) on Friday.
Thanks for the comments, love hearing from home. Good to hear we are getting some rain. Doug wants some lawn to mow when we get home.
Love to all………Dar and Doug
Doug & Devin
Doug & the Jersey girls
Pagoda in the park 
Squattie Pottie
Bike path that we travel on.
May 25th, 2008
Hi everyone, Doug woke up with no headache once again. Now just waiting for those stem cells to grow and multiply. He was thinking he should be feeling something, so he gave Becky a call and she confirmed that he must be patient as it takes time for these stem cells to do their job.
It was a cloudy day but very hot and muggy. It rained through the night and this morning. With no treatments today we just had a lazy morning. Johny took us out this afternoon and pointed out some things of interest. We stopped at the New Grand Century Hotel and went inside and had a look. It is beautiful and is the tallest building in the area- 45 stories. We had the driver drop us at the RT Mart as we needed snacks and then walked back to the hospital.
Johny is one of the translators here at the on the 20th floor, he is Chinese and has learned most of his English volunteering here before being hired. Lucy is another from China, she learned English in Middle school. Alf is an American who came to China to teach English. Hannah is also American and I believe she came to teach English as well.
Luca who is the patient co-ordinator also speaks English, Italian and Chinese, his home is Italy. Most of the nurses speak some English. Dr. Mike who is the head doctor speaks English as he worked in the States. Doug’s doctor is Dr. Hong and she speaks some English.
After we returned to hospital Doug did some Occupational therapy before supper. I think now it is time go say good bye to some people who are leaving here in the morning.
Doug says “Go Wings Go”
Until tomorrow…….Dar and Doug
Doug & Dar Doug & Johny at New Grand Century Hotel
May 24th, 2008
Second stem cell treatment is over and Doug is resting. Hopefully he is able to stay down for the six hours to avoid the headache. They must have given him some good drugs as he says he didn’t feel a thing. I sure hope to gets up tomorrow morning feeling the same.
While Doug was in Physical Therapy(PT) this morning I went for a walk and found a typical Chinese Farmers Market… I didn’t have my camera with me so I will have to go back… Both sides of the street were lined with people selling their goods. Some with fresh vegetables, others steaming Chinese dishes, some deep frying Chinese dishes, others selling t-shirts, shoes whatever. There was even an outdoor pool hall….. Donna, I know if you were here we would have had a blast sampling these local delicacies!!!!!!!!!This would be wheelchair accessible however it is an extremely narrow street with scooters, bikes, wagons and even cars, not to mention all of the pedestrians. Horns honking for you to step aside. I ‘m not sure I could get a wheelchair out of the way in time. It was great to experience some of the local flare. People here go about there business, no one trying to get you into their shops like Mexico or following you around like Jamaica.
I got back just in time for Occupational Therapy (OT) which is something I can do with Doug when ever we have time, but this morning James was assisting. It is to get more control in his hands. There is no treatment or therapy on Saturday or Sunday so we will do some PT and OT on our own. Most of the therapists here speak very little English and when you say Occupational Therapy, which is what the doctors call it, they don’t understand but if you say OT they understand. James is so cute he knows how to get his point across, he will say “up, down, straight or like me” and he assumes the possession to show Doug how to preform the exercise.
The entire staff here is amazing. They all have a great sense of humour which you all know Doug is going to use to his advantage. The nurses all make him feel like he is the only patient they have. It is truly wonderful.
The X-rays show that there is no bone damage in Doug’s knee or ankle so they feel that they can treat them with Physical Therapy. That is good news…
Doug has fallen asleep so I think I will pull the blinds and hope he stays that way for awhile.
Thank you everyone for your comments. We check for them each morning and several times through out the day.
Love to all, D & D
in our room with IV before treatment 
just outside stem cell treatment room, they check blood pressure here before returning to own room.
Click on photo to enlarge.
May 23rd, 2008
Hi everyone, I can’t believe it is Thursday already. Time seems to fly by here too…….we need time for these stem cells to grow and multiply.
James has been concerned with the pain in Doug’s right knee when doing PT. He spoke to the doctors when they made their rounds and they requested that an x-ray be done. They also x-rayed his ankle which has been bothering him for sometime. The pain in his knee has been for a long time so is about time someone is taking a look at it.
After PT he had acupuncture with electric current followed by electric wave treatment.
There were window washers in to do our windows today. We are on the 20th floor so we were curious how they did the out side. Pretty darn cool… they use magnetized pads one on the inside and one on the outside which is reached out on a pool until it touches the inside one. They move together and clean inside and out at the same time. I have no idea how it is done in Canada but this sure was slick, done in no time.
We are once again waiting for our Chinese food order. they usually arrive right at 6PM. Good service and good food.
Love to all, D & D
- acupuncture -electical wave treatment with nurse Carrie and window cleaning crew in back ground.
May 22nd, 2008
Hello from sunny China, it was another beautiful day. Doug’s day started with PT which was very good. They are working him hard. They do lots of different things that I would not have thought of doing. Tomorrow they are also going to start him on Occupational therapy to try to get more control in his hands. James, who is head of the PT department is Doug’s therapist so we should get the best. After PT we headed out into the traffic again, we are getting pretty good at it.
Then back for acupuncture, this time with an electric current attached followed by an electical wave treatment. Treatments are finished for the day so we will relax for the rest of the evening.
I am going to try to attach a couple of picture. I just have to figure out how first. Love to all….D&D
-1 & 2 view from our window through rather dirty windows
-3 & 4 the park
-5 PT
-6 Parking lot at RT Mart- can you imagine if they all drove cars?
Click on photo to enlarge
May 21st, 2008
Tuesday May 20, The internet here in the hospital has been down since last night so I will try to type this up in Word and transfer it to the blog once up and running. Doug woke up today head ache free, so pretty happy about that. The day started with a doctors visit, Doug’s MRI showed that he now has lesions on his neck and spine. The last MRI he had done was 11 years ago and at that time they were only on his brain.
After the doctor visit we took our chance in the bike lane once again and visited a pretty little park (which was actually wheelchair accessible, of course I discovered that after I took him down a few steps in the wheelchair) and on the way back we stopped at RT Mart and picked up a headset and hope to be able to make some phone calls through Skype once the internet is up and running. We had lunch at KFC, and returned to hospital for Doug to rest up before all of his sessions.
They started with 30 minutes of acupuncture, then 40 minutes of electric wave therapy, 30 minutes of a type of heat treatment on his back. Then he was off to Physical Therapy (PT). What a work out…. It was a lot for one afternoon and so they are going to schedule his PT for mornings now and that should be a little better.
The Acupuncture, electric wave and heat therapy are all done right in your own room. Our room is right next to the PT room so we lucked out there.
Sure hope this internet is up and running soon as love hearing from you at home. Keep the comments coming. Love to all………D&D
May 21st, 2008
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