Jillian Rose’s CP Blog

last spinal tomorrow (tonight for you)

September 25th, 2008

Hello!

Well, tomorrow Jillian will receive the last of her stem cell injections!  (That is tonight for you)  Right now as I’m writing this it is 11 p.m. on Thursday night for us.  So 11 a.m. Friday for us (11 p.m. Thursday night for you) is when she is scheduled.  She can’t have anything to eat or drink in the morning because of going under the general anesthesia.  But the last time it wasn’t scheduled until 2:30, so it was so hard telling her she couldn’t have anything aaaaaaaaalllll day.  Good thing we don’t have as long to deprive the little human food disposal of food this time.

I’m sure there that nothing will go wrong this time.  I’m sure they will pay extra attention and give extra care to the administration of the anesthesia this time.  Plus, Dr. Mike I’m sure will make sure.  I’ll let you all know how it went.

Just real quick…..Jillian did do a little something else she hasn’t been able to do before!  Tonight after dinner when I was making her drink her yuckie medicine in juice, she reached up and grabbed and HELD the cup ALL BY HERSELF!  With both hands!!!!  She was so proud of herself!!!!  She couldn’t quite get the straw in her mouth (they’re slippery little boogers), so I just put the straw in her mouth for her and she drank ALL BY HERSELF!  Do you think I was just a little bit happy??!!!!  Just a tiny bit.

I mean, she hasn’t done anything that would cause that earthquake I was hoping for YET, but all the parents I have talked to (many were on their second trip here) said that it is really two to three months after getting the stem cells that major changes show up.  I mean that makes sense.  But the fact that she has shown little things already is so promising!  And I do mean it is a PROMISE!  Not just a maybe.  She also really seems to have matured a lot while we’ve been here, seems like she grew up a lot. 

I had a 4×6 picture made of Jillian to leave here in a Florida palm-tree-hammocky-beachy photo frame that I brought from home with me, and when I showed the picture to LaLa, our helper, she held it to her chest and I could tell she wanted it for herself.  She held it to her chest and said “Jillie!” in a Chinese accent kind of way, and was asking if it was for her, and I nodded my head and said “yes, for you,” and she was so excited, said “shee shee, shee shee” and kissed the picture a bunch of times.  It made her truly happy to keep that picture.  She loves Jillian so much, genuinely.  Even though we don’t speak each other’s language, we still communicate so well and can joke with each other and understand and make each other laugh.  She’s my Chinese friend.  It really will be very sad to leave LaLa.    

Do you know that when a surgery is performed, say, for instance, a tumor is removed, it is the custom here to bring the actual removed tumor out in a clear plastic bag and show it to the family?   We saw a few of them.

Do you know that the little kids here, I mean the LITTLE ones, don’t wear diapers?  They’re tiny little tots and they toddle around or are carried, and they wear little pants that have huge slits in them; it’s an opening from front to back and about all the way down to the knees?  I’ve even seen a couple sitting in a shopping cart with their practically bare little bum.  You’ll see a little boy that’s gotta go, and he just stops and pees……right then and there.  They’re potty trained really early here.

We had a fun time this afternoon.  Carole, Bridgette, and myself gave a bunch of the nurses and physical therapists and one doctor an English lesson.  They LOVE it when you do that.  They even have a note posted up in the rec room asking for people to take the time to teach the nurses English and to schedule a little class and prepare some kind of material for them.  So they eagerly piled into the rec room and even more eagerly devoured every word and pronunciation we gave them.  They practiced and practiced and watched your lips pronouce the word and repeated it over and over and took notes.  It was great.  Jillian sat in on the lesson and had a blast.  Of course, no kidding, she thought they were all there for her.  She’s such an attention ham!  She kept looking at everybody and smiling and doing her newly-acquired clapping skill, waiting for the applause, also kept trying to say “quack” like a duck to impress everybody.  Of course there were times when they were all focused on their paper/lesson, that they weren’t looking up, but persist she did, and all the while with a huge smile on her face, confident that she would get her deserved praise!  And she wasn’t disappointed either.

Okay, I think I’ll get some shut eye now.  Just wanted to make sure I let everybody know what time her next (and last) procedure is so you could keep the prayers coming!  I’m confident that everything will go good, so don’t worry, okay?

And I still want to tell you how very important every single one of your comments to us are.  Thanks for sending us the love.  We can feel it.

Love to you all from China!

Tami & Jillie Bean (and Carole too!)

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