End of Week One

Friday is always physical therapy and spinal injection day. Not much to tell you about the 2nd injection - 30 minutes at the clinic, spinal injection, and 4 hours lying flat on your back. Hard to make that very interesting. I am thankful for the Ipod that Clark gave me - I've already finished two audiobooks and have 3 or 4 more for the days coming.

It was my first day of physical therapy, so it was mostly an evaluation day. They wanted to see what areas needed the most attention. They quickly could see my legs didn't work well and my balance was bad - left leg is worse than my right. So I assume they will be working on those areas over the next 3 weeks as I will have PT every day during that time.

In Costa Rica most of the patients stayed at the same hotel, so there seemed to be some bonding there. Here we stay in different places so you only see each other as you come and go from the clinic or PT. I would like to know more people's story, but it's not real easy. We have met several people - Janice from Texas (MS), Dana from Louisiana (MS), Julie from Minnesota (MS), and a sweet lady from Texas (eye disease that is taking her vision) and her sister from Wisconsin.

To these ladies and to Steve, I wish the best and pray for God to work through these treatments to give them improvement. Even small increments of improvement generate hope and enthusiasm. We all need Jericho's - those small victories in the face of troubled times.

Hasta manana!

20 lbs lighter

Well not really, but I did have lipo this morning - Dr. Picard, a plastic surgeon, performed the lipo - he spoke English so I felt very good about what he was doing. While I was in recovery, he told Kathy that he was pleased with the procedure and felt like they gathered some good fat tissue with plenty of active stem cells. The lab will harvest the cells from the fat tissue and will tell us later how many they were able to collect - they try to get anywhere from 50 to 150 million cells and hope that many of those cells are active.

I actually felt better coming out of surgery than early this morning. Last night wasn't real positive - around 12:00 I woke up with the dreaded spinal headache and fever and chills - didn't sleep much after that point. I didn't feel good this morning, but after going through lipo and spending about 3 hours in recovery (sleeping), I felt much better. Dr. Hernandez said the fever and chills are fairly common with the first injection and doesn't mean anything bad. So after hearing that news and sleeping more, I feel much better right now.

As I have said before, I know God could heal me in a blink, but if He chooses to use stem cells as His vehicle, then I think there is a definite purpose in that process and it has caused some positive growth in me. First off, having me pursue this procedure caused me to take an active role, and I believe God asks us to do that - not simply sit and expect him to heal in a blink. Also healing in a blink would not challenge my pride like the current method. It has been very good for my spirit to allow others to help because that act is very overwhelming and humbling - that's not easy for us but allowing others to help becomes very strengthening. You people have been incredible.

God is Good - friends are good!

Stem Cells have landed

Well I got my first treatment today - injection of cord blood stem cells in the spinal area. The lady in the picture, Dr. Tribaldos, was the one who administered it. Didn't really hurt - Dr. T did a good job. They then sent me "home" to lie flat for 3 to 4 hours - guard against the headaches. I'm up now and think I'm doing fine.

Tomorrow at 6:45 AM we go to the hospital for the lipo - not sure what to think about that part, but it's necessary so I guess it doesn't matter what I think. The other fellow in the picture, Dr. Hernandez, will be there during the lipo, but he doesn't do the procedure.

We begin physical therapy on Friday, and for the next 3 weeks I will go 5 days a week for PT. Steve had his 5th injection this week and seems to be doing well. He says he feels stronger and that's a good sign.

I thought it would be fitting to wear my Yankee shirt on the #1 day - I'm sure my Ennis coaches feel the same!

Hasta la vista!

Visit to The Canal

With some spare time we decided to go see the Panama Canal (took a taxi and that's a story for another time) - much more to the canal than I knew and obviously I can't share all of that now but I will give you a few fun facts.

These locks (what you see in the pictures) lift the ship up above sea level so it can cross through water inside the country; then similar locks lower the ship back to sea level so it can enter the ocean (that's in simple layman terms). The huge ship gets inside the lock, then the doors are closed behind it, then the water level is changed and the doors in front of the ship are opened - you can see some of those stages in the pictures. The ship does not sail through the locks - it is pulled by these railroad-looking cars beside the canal.

This huge tanker in the picture paid $350,000 to cross through the canal! That toll goes to the Panamanian gov - the US did operate the Canal until 1999 then it was turned over to Panama. It was built during the early 1900's and officially opened in 1914 - the same doors and mechanisms have been being used down in the water for nearly 100 years!

On the treatment front - I get my first spinal injection tomorrow (Wed) - it takes less than an hour at the clinic but then you go back to your apartment and lay flat for 4 hours so you won't get the spinal headache.

While we were in the clinic yesterday, two different children with autism were there for treatments. Dr. Paz also told us about treating a man with severe arthritis and helping him greatly. Dr. Paz is going to a convention in San Antonio to talk about his arthritis protocol. It's not just MS patients who are being treated here.

Some of you may want to check into these treatments for you or for loved ones - it's OK to be pro-active with your health!

First Day at SCI

We had our first visit at the Stem Cell Institute this morning, and all went well. We met with Dr. Paz, who is the director of the clinic, and he went over everything and answered all questions. He practiced for 12 years in San Antonio before coming to Panama in order to do more work with stem cells.

I have my first stem cell injection on Wednesday - this injection has stem cells from donated cord blood - later I will get stem cells harvested from my own body. I'm scheduled for lipo on Thursday to harvest my own - Dr. Paz said thinner people often have more stem cells in their limited fat tissue, so Kathy's attempt to "fatten me up" was probably not that necessary!

All of this is very exciting and would have never been possible without the generosity of so many people. As I was sitting at the clinic talking about the real possibility of improving, the thought of those gracious gifts and many prayers really struck me. I again say THANK YOU!!

More news later.

BTW - This one picture is the daytime view of the same picture that I sent on Saturday - just showing some of the view of this area of Panama City.

Live from Panama

Well, we made it to Panama City - here's the view toward the hospital from our room - as you can see Panama City is a big place.

Everything went very smooth on the trip other than sitting right in front of a guy who talked the whole 4 and half hours - I would describe him as "big hat / no cattle".

Couple of observations:

The people in Panama drive like ones in NYC - not as many cars of course, but signs don't mean much - just a slight look then gun it!

It gets dark here around 6:45 - it was light then it was dark - no "sun going down" time - it's like they turn the light switch off!

Our first visit to the clinic isn't until Monday morning, so tomorrow we will probably go the Super 99 supermarket that's across the street and maybe to a local fruit market. The Pacific Ocean is right beside us so we will go see the ships lining up out in the ocean waiting to go thru the Canal. Hopefully we will get a picture of the ocean to send with tomorrow's report.

We are meeting Steve and his mother for lunch tomorrow at their place - their building is about 30 yards from ours. I can't wait to hear about Steve's two weeks!

We met another couple on the flight from DFW area who are coming here for stem cell treatments - Edward and Janice from North Richland Hills. Janice has had MS for nearly 10 years - she uses a scooter now. We said she came through the airport on the scooter and will leave without using it! That's her goal and our prayer.

Until tomorrow - turn out the lights!

Final day

We leave in the morning - Saturday - I'm ready and excited - we heard good news from Steve Betik yesterday - he was on the treadmill at PT! He told Suzie that he was using his cane less and felt stronger. That is exciting and I'm so happy for him. This is his 2nd week - he has 2 more weeks so we will see him tomorrow when we arrive in Panama.

One reason I wanted to send this report was to practice sending a picture so I can get ready to send some back from Panama - don't have any of Panama right now so I'm sending one of Big Jackson - we have plenty of him and we are so grateful to BC & Sloan for sharing him with us - he may be walking before I get back.

It took me about 45 min but I finally got the pic of Jackson on here - this MacBook doesn't communicate with me like Windows but I'm getting used to it - I can't ever find files as easily as I do in Windows. Enough about my Mac problems. Next report will be coming from Panama - I promise. See ya Jackson.