Pictures from around Shenzhen

This is a picture of one of the shops selling all the Chinese New Year decorations. Chinese New Year is in February.
This was at a restaurant at the nice hotel across the street where we went for dim sum. Thought these were kind of neat....
Here is George and one of his many antics since we have been here... always the joker...

Day 9 (i think)

Hello- Melissa here again! George is tired but did not want to neglect the blog so he sent in a replacement. He is doing really well. His legs are still very achy but he says it is a good ache. So we'll take it. He was amazing in therapy today. He was walking so well. We normally walk (when without the walker) with his arm around my shoulder and today we walked just holding hands. He was also standing (briefly) on one foot! I am very happy with his progress. Everyone is commenting on how well he is doing. He has also been told that there has been improvement with his speech. It is hard for me to notice things because I am with him all the time, but when others point it out it is very exciting. Above is a picture of George balancing with his therapist Olivia. He can walk these bars without holding on. He goes slowly but he can do it. That is all for now... George will write more soon.

Day 7

I am going on seven days without shaving. I am going to attempt to grow a full beard while i am here. It is driving me crazy it is soo itchy, but it is just the distraction I need. I have started my daily IV of saline and"Chinese Medicine" as it is affectionatley refered to here by most or more accurateley Nerve Growth factor. The internet here is getting faster today the repairmen must be working hard in Taiwan fixing the problem. Melissa and I enjoyed our day off (Sunday is our day free from PT) checking out shops and enjoying the beautiful tee shirt weather. FIRST SIGN OF IMPROVEMENT I AM GETTING MUSCLE ACHES IN MY LEGS THAT I HAVENT FELT IN OVER TEN YEARS.On to a more serious note there are these propane powered bikes that i tried to capture on film but came out as smears (i swear these things do mach) travel very fast. These bikes are very funny looking, they have at least two BBQ propane tanks attached to the back end kind of like saddlebags. We found our first dvd vendor and got some pirated movies. The quality on the one we have watched was not bad. Hopefully the others will be ok too. But for less than $1 each we are not that concerned with quality. All in all it was a good day.... back to the grind for me tomorrow.

Day 6

Firstly, I apologize to all of those who are reading this blog who don’t know me personally, and may not appreciate my extremely sarcastic sense of humour. I am not used to writing to this wide of a reader base. I have the up most faith in Chinese medicine and would not “opt” out of any part of my rehab no matter how uncomfortable. Believe it or not despite my first reaction to the acupuncture I am actually seeing the benefits of it, and it is not very painful. What I can say is that this is a state of the art full service Hospital (to anyone contemplating the journey). All the staff here at Nanshan are fully dedicated to patient care. So yesterday I'm “walking” past the CT department on my way to get an MRI and I noticed out of the corner of my eye I saw someone staring at me. I thought I would stare him down, This guy had a 2x4 sticking out of his head.and he thought a guy with a disturbed gait was interesting!!
Back to my treatment experience. As you know yesterday was my first stem cell implant. It went fairly smoothly except the stem cells were 3 hours late which made the operation at 6:oopm, which made for an interesting night’s sleep. The procedure itself was painless, including the iv which I was worried about. It lasted about 20 minutes and I was sedated so I did not feel anything. Nor do I remember anything. I did my best to remain completely still to avoid the headache that they warn of, but unfortunately I did get one. Once the doctors were in they were able to give me something and it went away pretty quickly. I even made it down to acupuncture where I asked for an extra one in the head which also helped my headache! My therapist Olivia is awesome.

I attached a picture of the room above- notice the windows we have!!! Wall to wall, floor to ceiling- what a view of the city!!!

First Injection- Yay!!!

It is Melissa here writing for George as he is resting up after his first injection. The last couple of days has been pretty crazy and eventful for both of us. Yesterday George had to go for some "routine" tests. We went for an MRI, an ankle x-ray, and what they called a "muscle test". This test was a little more intense than he thought, and he found it rather uncomfortable. I think the worst part was that he was not expecting it. But he puts up with it all without complaint- I am very proud of him.

Today he had his usual therapy, including a new one- speech therapy, which involves tiny shocks to his throat. He has the therapists laughing with his good spirits. I ventured out alone to the grocery store and bought some food for us to make our own meals. The restaurant food is good but you need some "normal" food every once in awhile. I got a cooking lesson from one of the other ladies here who is from Thailand. It was delicious fried rice!

George had his first injection today at 6pm. He is back now and resting in the room. He is to lie still completely for 6 hours so he is just trying to fall asleep. It went well it seems. We will see what the next couple of days brings.

We will keep you all posted.

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

Arrived in Shenzhen (safely)

We are finally here. Air Canada was great! With all of he cutbacks I was expecting a bargain hunters economy flight what we got was 3 good meals (i know im a freak but I love airline food) and some good entertainment. Air china on the other hand was terrible aside from leaving ourr luggage in beijing , the crew watched as Melissa and I struggled carrying the walker up the stairs to board the aircraft. I also didnt know what jetlag was till now. I tried to write my entry on the day we arrived, but all the prompts are in chinese so it took some trial and error to finally get to the posting screen. The internet is extremly slow because of the earthquake in Taiwan.
Everyone here is sooo nice including the patients. So far ive met the Deering sisters, Shannon and Erica and Naomi Merchant who is really positive, and an all around Super gal ( She fell off of her parents unfinished deck and broke her back, thus paralizing her from the waist down.) Just now i met a man named Van from Vanccover who has a daughter with Ataxia who has been here just a couple of weeks showing many Signs of improvements.
Anyway i could write for days about what ive seen but im afraid of running out of material. See ya!!