Mike’s Ataxia Blog

8 Comments Add your own

• 1. Chuckie  |  October 19th, 2008 at 11:00 pm

  Mike, your not in kansas anymore.

  You are on the first steps of a long journey, Here’s to the professionalism of your medical team and your perserverance in aggressively attacking this disease. Our greatest wish is to see the final steps of the journey made confidently reclaiming the vitality with which you approached life.

  It’s starting to look like we will have a socialist schvartzah in the White House. Colllard Greens on every plate and a chicken in every bucket. But he can’t screw it up any worse than the Bush Presidencies(Pick either one)

  I don’t understand a country were it is alright for companies to send their executives on an all expenses paid vacation fully tax deductible, pay some of those same executives 10 times what the president of the US earns, the companies lose money and they come to Government for a handout. Never mind that if they lost that much money, they can recover all the taxes they paid over the last 3 years and can carryforward unused losses to future years. Of course when the economy recovers, they will show enormous profits so that the executives can get another 25-50% pay raise. While Joe Six-pack and Sally Secretary make 1/250th of Edward Executive.
  Or that two banks can combine ostensibly so that the profitable bank can apply the losses of the failed bank to save themselves the 35% in taxes that they would otherwise owe on a multibillion dollar profit, and then tell their customers that we have to raise fees for services the bank provides so that we can remain solvent.

  Heard that Sarah Palin was considering a run in 2012 with the Bull Moose party. (She was on SNL last night, Funny stuff.)
  I can understand why she is so out of touch with Americas real problems. She is governor of a state where 2/3′s of the budget is paid through corporate taxes (by oil companies) and the other 1/3 is income from investments. Alaska has 80 billion dollars in the bank. There is no personal state income tax.
  They also gave each of their 611,000 citizens $2,069 as a dividend and an additional $1,200 in a one time “resource rebate”. Talk about your welfare states.

  I don’t know why I’ve decided to turn this into a rant, maybe just to give you something to read.

  Her’s hoping that your time on the other side of the world passes quickly and that your discomfort is neglible.

  Good Luck and I’ll speak with you soon

• 2. Mom  |  October 19th, 2008 at 11:10 pm

  I haven’t read your blog yet. Aunt Sandy just showed me how to do this. We talked with you with the Cam Corder and it was and is wonderful; I can’t thankyou enough. Now I am going to the blog. I love you. Mom

• 3. Mom  |  October 19th, 2008 at 11:35 pm

  Michael I don’t see where I can read other people’s comments to you – how do I do that? No Aunt sandy doesn’t see it either —help,
  Mom and Me (guess who)…………..
  by the way if you go to the menu on Skype there are some games on there – you may want to play chinese checkers!

• 4. melissa tantillo  |  October 20th, 2008 at 12:13 am

  Hey Mike~
  this is bringing back memories of Ukraine!! After we read emails, we checked our blog for comments. Totally helped us get through. I hope everybody who reads your blog sends you commets,although i do wish that i could send you food instead!! Chris and i used to play games like ‘guess which restaurant i’m thinking of’ and if you could eat anything what would it be? It helps when everything you are eating is beige! Keep typing, we love to know every single thing you are going through!!!
  We love you soooooo much,
  the 5 of us

• 5. Christine Gray  |  October 20th, 2008 at 2:11 am

  Hi Mike,

  Glad all is going well, if a bit surreal…glad you have a sense of humour. You just have to laugh at some of this stuff…it’s truly bizzare.I never had jet-lag going over, they started tests on me when I arrived at 11p.m.. because I was o.k.-wish I’d been oit of it! Hope you come out of it soon. Sounds as if that hospital is older and more rudimentary than where I was because we never had power or water problems etc…but some of the older stores we went into had periods of “brown outs” or even “black outs”…made shopping very interesting- sometimes we get back with odd grocery items that we thought we something else, like peanut butter with black sesame seeds! It wasn’t too bad, actually…. Yes , airport security was incredible. I remember having my passport checked 6 times….Hong Kong also had incredible security including 3 more passport checks as well as a quick “eye scan”…”Blade Runner”. … Yeah, isn’t the traffic & Noise (and smog) wild. . A bit industrial but I’ll bet you discover some local haunts to frequent in your “neighbourhood”.
  The spinal should fine-they give you something in your i.v. to make you “out of it”-mine wore of in an hour but I’ve read comments where others have slept for hours from it. My i.v. was a piece of cake, like you say , b ut, for some reason , my cells wouldn’t “flow” right and a nurse had to keep coming and re-starting my i.v. (I have tiny veins, I never make a good junkie, I guess…) I loved physio-therapy, but I guess it really depends on the facilities available, your individual therapist and the exercises you have to do. The epuipment and space you end of needing is pretty basic.

  If you find a bakery or Chinese baked goods , try them out. They were incredible. As well, I liked canned coffee & tea and these incredible drinkable milky/yogurt type drin ks.

  I know a few peop[le who’d love to read youir blog-can I pass the info along? Let me know.

  Take good care, I’ll be reading with interest and keep in touch..

  Cheers,
  Chris

• 6. Jeff  |  October 20th, 2008 at 7:34 am

  You will get used to the nurses taking your temp. They will do it everyday-several times a day. Be warned if your temp is up any they will not do the stem cells treatments and it will throw you entire schedule off.
  Also drink LOTS of water to keep the temperature down and make it easier for the nurses to insert the IVs–we found that out the hard way.
  The jet lag leaves quick because they keep you so busy during the day. You will also get a rhythm for calling home. You will find time that works and get in routine. We looked so forward to he calls home.
  Talk to you soon,
  Leslie (Jeff’s wife)

• 7. Brian Stringfellow  |  October 20th, 2008 at 8:13 am

  Hey Mike. My name is Brian. I am Jeff Crowes brother. Just stopped by to say hi and to let you know you are in my prayers. Don’t know how you feel about those kinds of things but they’ve helped me so i thought it couldn’t hurt. You are very brave for doing this alone. I couldn’t imagine Jeff over there without Les and Dave. If you need an ear you can always reach me at brian225@charter.net Take care man and no worries. This will be over before you know it.

• 8. sylvia  |  October 20th, 2008 at 2:02 pm

  I see that soon you will need a secretary to keep up this journal for you! Very nice to see that you have met many kindred spirits along the way. I wish them all the best, and am glad to know that you have their support, and shared experiences.

  Thx for explaining about your treatments. I was wondering where they were introducing the stem cells. I’ll be waiting to read about how the other treatments modalities fair with you, as well as the stem cells.

  Good to hear that people are treating ya right. Nice to learn about the local scene. You have touched upon all my interests very concisely…family, culture, and food! So how is the pizza there?
  xoxo

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