Drew’s CP Blog

3rd stem cell treatment

August 6th, 2008

Good news–Drew did not have a temperature this afternoon.  You’ll have to read the previous posting to understand why we were nervous about his temp.  He had another lumbar puncture today and only 3 more treatments to go.  The new schedule does not come out until Friday.  Mike was thinking that they might schedule him for Monday, Friday and then the following Wednesday. 

Drew did well during physical therapy today.  The last 5 or 10 minutes of each 60 minute session Kerri has Drew practice rolling over.  He rolled the quickest yet with a little less assistance than usual.  She always works on head control exercises too and we’ve noticed an improvement.  We will definately continue to practice these exercises until he doesn’t need it anymore.

We noticed something cute today during Drew’s bedrest.  During his Dora show, the show encourages him to make an “sss” sound like a snake.  Then a little snake pops out.  Drew immediately starts making the sound but of course only when Dora says “can you make an sssss sound?”.   He smiles about 30 seconds before because he knows that scene is coming up and he can participate.

They took him in early for the procedure at 2:30 and he was done at 3pm.  Last time they said we can get him up after 4 hours but all the literature says after 6 hours.  It also says the longer he stays flat the better.  It’s also better that he sleeps.  I think tonight we’ll see if Drew can last 6 hours and we’ll only keep him upright for 15 minutes.  So at 9pm we’ll give him a little break, then hopefully go to bed.  When you are sleeping there is a higher concentration of a particular hormone that stimulates the repair in his brain that we definately want.  Hopefully, Drew will sleep good tonight.

We had a talk with Dr. Tony and he thinks that Drew’s improvements will happen over a longer period of time.  He’s pretty confident that Drew will improve.  He asked a bunch of questions as far as changes in Drew and we pretty much answered no to all of them.  Things like is Drew saying any words, is he rolling on his own, etc.  Dr. Tony didn’t seem discouraged at all.  We just got to the halfway point of his stem cell injections, so Drew has plenty of time.

Hopefully we will receive our family album tomorrow.  The photographer promised to put all of the pictures on CD, so Mike will be able to put them on the photo website.  Tomorrow actually is an exciting day for me.  When we were having our pictures taken another photographer requested to take pictures of me.  He showed us his work and we’re all pretty impressed.  My hair and makeup will be done and he will provide the clothes.  Rebecca translated for me that all I have are jeans and barf stained clothes!  Hopefully the clothes will be long enough because i’m about a foot taller than most women here.  The pictures are going to be taken around the city and will last all afternoon.  Mike told me it will be my Kristin time away from the hospital.  Mike also told me that if any other photographers want to take a picture of our family, we have to start charging!!  What can I say the Chinese like American babies with cowlicks, Wentworth Miller, and tall pasty chicks.

Kristin & Mike

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