Wednesday - Day 3

Today started off like the last 2 days with Kristina picking us up. What a beautiful day. The weather here is gorgeous!! It is supposed to be in the high 70’s today. Angelina met me with the IV bag at my chair and said “OK baby” a nickname she has come to call me. This was a huge bottle of liquid but she said that I only needed to have half of it.

Antonio walked in shortly after I was hooked to the IV and asked if I was ready to get started with the exercises. He ran me thru various stretching routines and exercises to do to help my balance and coordination. He is always asking what word we use to mean something and he is really getting good at getting his point across. Plus, he is teaching me Spanish and how to respond to certain questions. I am certain his English is better than my Spanish. We worked for about 35 minutes, took a 30 minute break and then another 20 minutes of workout. We kept getting in trouble from Angelina because when I would get up from the chair and do some of the routines he asked, the fluid would stop flowing into my arm and blood would start flowing out into the tube. She would come over and scold us, laugh a bit and say “OK baby” and all was good.

Early afternoon, I was unhooked from the IV and told that we had about 50 minutes before the procedure. Suzie and I asked if we could go walk outside and they encouraged us to do so. Here we are walking down the street me in a T-shirt and pajama bottoms and Suzie in a short sleeve blouse and jeans and most of the other people were in jackets and coats. Mind you, it is winter here and to them it is cold. But 70 degrees is heaven! When we came back in we commented on how beautiful it was that the people there were amazed because they were cold. Earlier in the day, Dr. Andrade came in to greet us wearing a long-sleeve shirt, tie and a winter scarf wrapped around his neck. Suzie and I had a hard time from laughing while talking with him.

When it was time for the procedure, Angelina took us back into a room and we both changed. I put on the dreaded gown, surgical hat and booties. Suzie put on scrubs. The top was a bit big so she just put it on over her blouse. When they took us into the operating room, IT WAS HOT!! It was 80 degrees in there. They had me get on the table and get comfortable. Dr. Andrade was joined by 2 other doctors and of course Anelina. They immediately went to work discussing everything in Spanish and pressing on my shins. Now, until now I was not nervous or scared. But when you have 3 men speaking in a language that you do not understand knowing that they are going to drill a hole in your leg, I got a bit anxious!!

One of the doctors said I will feel a pinch and they inserted he needle in my right shin just below my knee to deaden it. A few minutes later they said I should feel pressure but no pain. When they stared to drill, I felt some pain and said so. They stopped for a minute and started again. This time, nothing. When they reached their destination, they attached a syringe to the top of the tube sticking out of my leg and started sucking out the bone morrow. I felt some pain under my knee and my 3 little toes on my right foot began to curl under. It was like the suction was pulling the under. Very Strange!! They filled 4 large syringes with bone morrow. Dr. Andrade was very pleased with the quantity they extracted.

After they were finished, they bandaged up my right leg and wrapped my left leg to prevent DVT’s from forming. These are blood clots in the legs. They were being cautious since I had DVT’s 3 years ago. They rolled me on my back, curled me into a ball and started the spinal tap process. They deaden a spot in my back with an injection and then inserted a tube into my spinal canal until some spinal fluid started to drip from the tube. At that time they took 3 ml of the stem cells and injected it into my spinal canal. Dr. Andrade said that that 3 ml contained 20 million stem cells.

After they were finished with that process, they had me roll on my back and Angelina hooked me up to an IV containing all but one syringe of my stem cells mixed with saline solutions and heparin, a blood thinner. Dr. Andrade said proudly that this IV contained 500 million of my stem cells! When we spoke on Monday he estimated that they would give me over 200 million cells so he was very pleased with the process they performed on me and that my body produced so many.

They took us back to the recovery room and I relaxed in the bed for about another half hour. From the time I went into the O.R. to the time they had me in the recovery room was less than 1.5 hours. We started the process at 3pm and we walked into our hotel room at 5pm.

The rest of the evening, I lay in bed relaxing. Suzie went down and got us some dinner. I was given Dolac, a pill for pain before I left the clinic and it upset my stomach. I wasn’t feeling very well and didn’t want much. She got me some apple pie and ice cream that seemed to hit the spot. Suzie has been a real blessing and I am so blessed to have a sister that cares so much.

God Bless!