Wednesday, January 3, 2007

Day four

Today was my first day of physical therapy and let me tell you, they kept me very busy. The acupuncture here is 10 x worse here than it is back home. The needles go in almost 1/2" and to top it off they run electrical current through a machine that makes your body gyrate. Melissa stood there and watched in disbelief that I wasn't crying. Like I've always said: me and pain go way back!!
I don't think I've let you guys in on a little secret of mine. I am deathly afraid of needles, not the kind that just poke you, but the kind that go inside your veins for blood retrieval or an IV.
I almost passed out my first day here from a simple blood test.
On a lighter note we ate McDonalds, it tasted exactly the same as back home, right down to the card board fries!! The drink on the other hand appeared to be a mix Iced tea and flat Coke.
First round of stem cells arrive on Friday...Cant wait

5 comments:

Kim Poor's stem cell treatment said...

George,

You can plead with Dr. Yang to let you out of acupuncture. Mine was only 9 needles w/o electrical. 3 of them in the back of the head! He said I could skip it, but I got used to it.

That 6 or 7 vials of blood they took is about as bad as it gets. The stool sample is the hard part. They test the blood against the stem cell serum to make sure there's no problems. The daily IV's are nearly painless, the nurses are skilled. just hydrate so they have fat veins to punch, and don't watch. You'll need to pee, but just have Melissa carry the pole.

Kim Poor

Richard said...

Any suggestions for someone planning to come in March?

In particular, are things wheelchair accessible? I also have MJD/SCA3.

Do you find all times busy or intervsals with intense isolation/boredo?

- Richard

jana said...

Woo hoo George and Mel!

Thinking of you...

Jana :)

Unknown said...

George,

Please tell Andrea that you don't want accupuncture. Basically the stem cells will work even if you don't do any of the rehabiliation. There was a girl with SCA2 there and she never went for rehab or accunpuncture for various reasons and she still got quite a bit of improvement. However, the excercises do help so do them at least if possible.

- Jon

nancy cavoto said...

Hi George and Melissa,
sending hellos from the Tome Family
this is so exiciting we are so happy for all the wonderful improvments.Olga thinks the full beard will look great with the shaved head when you get back, we know your mother thinks otherwise.
Benny is asking for a 2007 nissan skyline photo with cute chinese girls hahaha. Tia Gilda is very happy with your whole experience your are in her daily prayers.Danny and Angela just got back from Cancun and wish you all the best. Nancy says I am very happy to hear that things are going well, Stay strong and looking forward to reading up on the progress.
Tome family xoxoxoxo