Momo’s Stem-Cell Blog

Our Second Day: A Busy Day of Therapy (2/20/08)

February 21st, 2008

I woke up again at 2 am, but Dr. Jack won’t see Momo before 9 am. So I used this opportunity to catch up on e-mails, browse online news sites, and flip through the twenty or so TV channels. To my dismay, BBC World News and Wikipedia, two of my most favorite web sites, were blocked, though I could browse Google News, New York Times, LA Times, and other sites. I’d like to know what criteria the Chinese censor board uses to decide which web sites to block.

The cable channels ran an assortment of news, music, sports, slapstick comedies, soaps, movies, and even teletubbies, but it was all in Chinese. The soaps were pretty melodramatic, much like the “masala” Hindi movies some of us grew up with. The sports channel was showing a recent Lakers vs. Suns basketball game. The commentary was in Chinese, but the video feed was directly from ESPN (with English text and scores), and so it was easy to follow. Another channel showed a trailer of an upcoming telecast of Tom Hanks’ “Forest Gump” dubbed in Chinese. A different channel was showing a TV series of the Olson twins (which I had never seen in the USA), also dubbed in Chinese. The music channel was not the traditional Chinese music with colorful costumes as I would have expected, but mostly Western-influenced pop, boy band, and hip hop routines in the Jessica Simpson, Justin Timberlake, and Eminem style, but in the Chinese language. I also saw Tracy McGrady in an Adidas commercial and Jessica Simpson in a Nokia commercial. I guess that American culture have had a stronger influence in this non-English speaking country that I had presumed. Later on in the morning, I caught a portion of a movie with English subtitles about the last heirs of the Ming Dynasty trying to recapture Taiwan from the Dutch. Now I don’t know anything about the Ming Dynasty, but I promised myself to read up on it.

Dr. Jack came with his entourage of doctors and nurses at 9 am, and gave us our entire schedule for the week. It was packed with physical therapy, a CT scan, and (shudder) acupuncture sessions. The acupuncture later turned out to be a typo, and was replaced with electrical wave therapy. One of the interns took a video of Momo walking. We were also told that his first stem cell transplant (SCT) will be on Friday via IV.

At 9:40 am, we went to physical therapy with James. James had a whole bunch of activities lined up for Momo, including catching a ball, walking through an obstacle course, balancing, stationary biking, and some mental exercises that involved following complex sequences of acts. Most of these exercises made sense, given the deficits that he has, but we haven’t done most of these (except the biking and the balancing) in any of our PT sessions in the USA. I was pretty impressed, and Momo had a lot of fun.

Next was a standing bed, where Momo was strapped to a bed with his ankles positioned straight and bending forward and made to stand in that posture for 30 minutes. I can imagine how uncomfortable this was, but I can also see that we need this to correct his wide gait and improve his walking. Momo was visibly distressed, and I did my best to take his mind away by having his draw pictures in that position.

After our lunch, we went for a CT scan ordered by Dr. Jack. Momo was initially cooperative, but got scared when he saw the moving red beam in the scanner. He cried and moved and I know that the CT images won’t come out good, but I hope that we don’t have to redo it.

Our last appointment for the day was electrical wave therapy, where they strapped electrical stim pads on Momo’s legs and arms, and stimulated them for 40 minutes. Momo is not used to anything like this, and was initially quite uncomfortable. But I have had this before for my own back pain, and I know that it does not hurt and is actually quite rejuvenating. So, I’m hoping that Momo will get used to this in due time.

Our long day was over at 4 pm. My back was hurting after a day of standing, and had to lie down for a while. Before I knew it, I was sound asleep.

Momo in front of XiaoShan ZheJiang Hospital. His room is on the top floor.

Momo at a local park near the hospital.

An urban park in Xiaoshan.

Entry Filed under: Uncategorized