Carer ps am 13th Oct Report 3
Would you believe our blog web site has been under maintainance for the last 12+ hours!
Couldn’t publish last nights blog. Will try this am.
So adding this ps.
The morning after Shelagh’s 1st S/cell injection her voice improved, albeit a little, which was a good sign. That effect didn’t last for more than a few hours that day but it didn’t get worse, and has been about the same since.
This morning, after her 2nd S/cell treatment yesterday, an improvement again is noticeable, which perhaps will last longer. Also her spitting force has improved.
We have no acupunture this AM so after massage we go to the Wholesale Market to look around (ten minutes by taxi at about $2.00 each way) and then back for physio.
Sunday is a day off apart from acupunt. am., as the Prof. is away lecturing, then free to go sightseeing.
It is now night time, we have been trying to publish this all day but no luck so far. Shelagh’s voice has maintained its improvement all day and her swallowing she says shows some improvement also. She is able to eat some chopped fruit now instead of mashed fruit.
Pss. For those who read and haven’t yet blogged, have a go, it does us both a lot of good.
Mike
October 18th, 2007
Carers Report 2 12th Oct
While Shelagh is immobile for the next 4 hours I’ll attempt to write up todays activities.
We started this am with acupuncture at 0830. The process is now less painful ‘cos after my ‘chat’ with the doctor a couple of days ago, with the help of an interpreter, the voltages supplied to the needles is at a bearable level. In fact the doctor (Professor GE Shu-han) and I get on heaps better, so much so that he took me to his Library/Office and there presented me with one of his many publications (63) . He is number two in China and is highly regarded here and over the world for the work he has been doing in acupuncture – moxibustion. We discovered that we were born in the same year and have been practicing our professions for 46 years, his in traditional and western medicine and mine being married to the same woman, so we were equal in life’s experiences. His excitement increased to such an extent that he insisted in autographing his book (in Chinese) for me and also gave me a copy of his ‘Introduction to Celebrated Acupuncturist’ profile(in English).
All that took about 40 minutes so we then went back upstairs to have a much needed coffee.
The next session was at 1020 and involved 20 mins. of massage with Matt (!!! some names are hard to pronounce so we westernise to something close) and today he was a lot more gentle because the previous day’s session left Shelagh a little sore. There is a benifit with this therapy and today Shelagh felt a lot better.
We then rested up to lunch time Lunch today was a take away pizza, ordered in and delivered at a cost the equiv. of $7.00 plus $3.00 delivery. Normally the del. (taxi) charge is about 50 cents – but we were the only ones having a pizza and all the other food came from a different direction. The pizza was a bit of a mystery in respect to the toppings. I did regonise some cheese and some ham and Shelagh thought she saw some shrimps but a couple of other bits we couldn’t put a name to except the thumping great fried egg placed artistically smack bang in the middle. We took a photo.
Then at 1415 we went to physio. which takes half an hour and found that Shelagh’s strength in her left arm and hand is getting better each time, a good sign. The physio’s name is Willy and is young but very good , he is attentive and gentle
Then back to room and await the call to go down, with bed, to the 8th floor for S/cells injection. The call came at 1640, so we trundled off with the bed, (with Shelagh driving from the front), down to the op. theatre. She went in at 1653 and came out at 1709. The same awareness of the anesthetic been administered and a similar tingling feeling in one leg with the S/cell injection, plus what she described as a mini ‘hot flush’ travelling down from the neck to the toes. Its now 4 hours since then and she has rested, as ordered by the experts, so as to reduce the risk of a bad headache coming on by moving too soon after the treatment.
I did a lot of videoing today for the first time. The acupucture session, the massage session, the physio session the trundle down to the op. Theatre (not allowed inside) and back. Plus some of the inside of the Hosp and some of the views outside through windows.
Shenyang hosts the Olympic Soccer games next year (dont know about the finals though), and they are already gearing up for the event.
The above routine is typical of the days here but for the S/cell treatment which is about every five days, plus of course on other days between sessions we can do a bit of shopping!! We plan to a bit of sight seeing soon as well.
I’ll close by saying a big thank you to all those great messages you have been sending. They are greatly appreciated and we look forward to them very much. Bye for now…………. ..
October 18th, 2007
