our excursion
Hello! Actually that’s “Nee How” in Chinese!
My wonderful mom is officially gone. (sniff) It’s just me and Jillie Bean now. It was so great having her here. Couldn’t have done it without her, that’s for sure……..absolutely, positively. But before she left, we had to get her out of the hospital so she could feel like she had actually been in China. So…….
Yesterday we went OUT! Yes, OUT! A translator and a driver took us to Wooshan (that’s how it’s pronounced anyways) Square, and it was GREAT! It’s like a big outdoor shopping square. It was very Chinese……I mean I guess what do you expect since we’re in China?! It was old mixed with new, so “Chinesee” you would think it was designed by a tourist board or something.
I had heard before we came that the Chinese openly stare at non-Asian people….and they weren’t kidding or exaggerating. Jillian was like a tourist attraction to them. There was one point where there were about 20 Chinese people just standing around her and looking and talking to her. The translator told us they were saying things like “she looks like a toy,” or ”she looks like Barbie.” They would bring their children over to show them the little curly-haired American blonde girl. At one point, she looked up at the crowd, and they all chattered something excitedly……Apparently the light must have caught her blue eyes just right.
We promised to get her some pizza. She thought the shopping thing needed to be moved along so we could hurry to the pizza. Yes, they have a Pizza Hut. I took a picture. The pizza was actually pretty darn good. But they had things on their menu that we don’t have, like ribs, shrimp dishes, cappuccino, onion rings, alcoholic beverages, all kinds of Americanized things. We invited the driver to come in for pizza also, and it was so funny because he tried to pick up the WHOLE slice with his knife and fork……seriously lacking success. He tasted an onion ring with a look on his face like we would have on our face if we were tasting fried scorpions (and yes, they do have that…..and more!)
Jillian has been sleeping really well too! Oh, thank God! She’s adjusting really well. We still don’t know the plan for her stem cell injections, but we’re hoping to find out on Monday how the cells are growing in the culture. I think they’re hoping for 3-4 stem cell injections; the first one by IV and the rest by spinal. She could actually get her first IV stem cell injection on Monday, or probably Tuesday. So we’re kind of in limbo right now.
There are some really fantastic people here in this hospital for treatment. It seems that the hospital tries to group certain nationalities at the same time. For instance, right now there are a bunch of American families, and then there are quite a few families from Romania. There is a guy here that I think Jillian would give me up for. He’s from Idaho and he’s here to help his friend Jud through the treatment. She’s all eyes for Zimm (he won’t tell anybody his real name). If you all know Jillian, she’s a sucker for anything musical. So Zimm plays the guitar…..a lot. He lets her play his guitar, and she thinks he is the cat’s meow. I told him that one of her favorite songs is “My Girl,” so he plays and sings that song for her daily; and sometimes while he is playing and singing, he has to stop and smile because she is looking at him so adoringly. If he walks by in the hall, she yells out, loudly, and doesn’t give a hoot what DVD is on currently. I think we might be experiencing her first crush. It’s really kind of cute. He gets all wrapped up with Jillian’s attention, and is crazy about her too and plays especially for her daily.
I have some pictures to share……but I’m afraid I’m not blog savvy……but I’m going to try to figure out how to upload them. If not, then I’ll send them out by regular e-mail to everybody. But don’t lose faith in me…….I’ll get it figured out.
But I just wanted to share the current highlights on our adventure. And to say thanks, again, from the bottom of my heart for all of your comments, sending along SO MUCH love to us. I read them to Jillian too. But sometimes I get a little choked up, and she looks at me kind of funny. You have no idea how much all of your support means to us!
I’ll post again soon! Love to all of you! Zi Jin (bye-bye)!
Tami and Jillie Bean
6 comments September 6th, 2008
