Update 1/15/08

Ni Hao,
The past 24 hours have been busy and very eventful. We have so much to tell. We wake up very early since we fall asleep early at night. When the sun came up yesterday morning it was very smoggy. We thought that it might be because Shenyang is an industrial city and perhaps the factories had started back up on Monday morning. The temperature was 23 degrees below zero celcius. It always feels colder than the thermometer says.
After our morning routine and breakfast, the first doctor came in with the x-rays that Derek had had done on Saturday to do an exam on him. Upon finishing, he said that he would conference with the head neurosurgeon and get back to us. Tony always accompanys the doctors to translate for us. Derek then had his first physical therapy session. His therapist's name is Timmy. That is about all the English that he speaks. He is nice and does a good job. He did a lot of stretching and rotation with Derek. While Derek was doing his therapy, Tony brought me his schedule for his stay here. He has accupuncture Monday thru Saturday at 9:00am and he has physical therapy Monday thru Saturday at 10:45 and 3:00. It also had his treatment schedule which Tony said might change after the doctors conferenced. So early in the afternoon the head surgeon came to do his evaluation. Another doctor did an assessment of Derek's muscles so that he could do a comparison before he leaves the hospital. It is aquivelant to the Asia Scale test that is done in the United States. Then Tony and Lucy videotaped an interview with Derek performing some tasks. This is for Beike Biotech (the company that we went thru to come here) and they will do another one also before we leave to compare. After the afternoon physical therapy session, Derek was scheduled to go down two floors to have his first stem cell injection into his spinal column. They fly the umbilical stem cells from the city of Yen Hoa (may be spelled wrong). Once the stem cells leave the blood bank, they are only good for 24 hours, so they wheel all the patients down on their beds and line them up in the hall to do one after the other. They try to do them late in the afternoon because the patients have to lay perfectly flat for 6 hours. We did not get Derek's until 5:00 because the flight was late getting into Shenyang. Derek did very well with the procedure. Upon arriving back at his room, the nurse puts an IV in his hand and proceeds to hang three different liquids, one after the other. These are enhancers to help move the stem cells through his spinal cord and to help the stem cells regenerate. After the IV is taken out, at 9:00 he had an injection in his arm. Derek did great laying still for six hours. I had to get up every 1 to 1 1/2 hours to catheter him because of all the liquids that they had given him. He said that the shot in the arm hurt the most. This morning after breakfast, Tony came in with the doctor and x-rays and said that the doctor wanted to talk to us. The two doctors had gone over the x-rays and exams and came to the conclusion that Derek should have surgery if we agreed to it. He pointed out on the x-rays two spots on Derek's spinal cord that were of concern. At the top of Derek's injury site the spinal cord is adhered to the spinal colum and at the bottom of Derek's injury site he has a cyst full of liquid that is putting pressure on his spinal cord. The doctor said that he has been doing this type of surgery for 10 years and has had good results. Both doctors feel that if they do surgery on these sights, Derek might have a good chance of some recovery. We all agreed right off that he would have the surgery. We are thankful that they found these and feel that we have nothing to loose and hopefully a lot to gain. We feel that this is the miracle we have been praying for. In the United States, when you have a spinal cord injury, the doctors repair the injury with surgery and then leave it up to fait as to what you get back. They don't go back after the surgery to re-examine or follow up with x-ray or MRIs. We are so grateful that we came because we would never have known that these problems existed nor would Derek have ever improved. He is scheduled to have the surgery on Jan. 23rd. This was the day that he was scheduled to have his own bone marrow stem cells injected. They will go in and do the surgery to repair both problems and then inject his own stem cells at the site of the injury. This surgery will not extend our stay because we are going to give up one of our stem cell injections. He won't be able to do any therapy for a week to 10 day after the surgery until the stitches are out. I will keep you posted on any new developments. Thank you again for all your help and support in making this possible for Derek. We will be eternally grateful to you. Love, Derek, Kathy and Nicole