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 We are home sweet home after 42 days abroad. We are extremely grateful for all of the great care that Drew received while at the Xiaoshan hospital in Zhejiang. The staff treated us like family and we already miss them like crazy. We feel blessed that this treatment is available and that we were able to take our son over twice. I'll give our parents a few days to make their own assessments to see if they notice any differences with Drew's overall ability. Drew's physical therapist, Minnie, will also be seeing him on Wednesday for the first time since we've been home, so I will be sure to write updates for everyone.
While at the hospital Dr. Tony told us that Drew was still going through "the adjustment" period and that he suspected that we will notice improvements in 3 to 6 months. After our first trip, Mike and I really started to notice improvements one month after his last SCT in August. His explosive vomitting started to diminish slowly. His oral motor control really started to improve too. We were still seeing improvements in these categories when we returned in April this year, about 7 months later. We met another family on their third trip to Hangzhou from England for there 2 year old daughter with CP. They noticed that their daughter had a lot more gains the second time around. Overall, we noticed there were several families who had already received stem cell treatments in the past and were back for another round.
Our trip home was really long but uneventful for the most part. We left the hospital on Sunday at 9:45 am for Shanghai or if you look at it from our time zone at home, it was really Saturday at 9:45pm. China is 12 hours ahead of us. We finally walked in our house at 120am on Monday. I would have to say our biggest complaint was at the airport in America not in China. Our gate number kept on changing so we would have to walk down a flight of stairs, walk up stairs onto a bus, get out of the bus, walk up another flight of stairs, etc. They did this twice to us. Wouldn't you know...nobody helped us. We had 4 huge bags, Drew, and his cadillac stroller. The bus driver didn't bother to put down the handicap ramp on the side of the bus, no one in the bus offered to help us. In fact, Mike and I got the stroller half way up the steps and no one would even get up so we could roll the stroller onto the bus. We had to tell the passengers not once but twice to get up so we would have room to squeeze Drew's stroller in. We went through all of this SEVERAL times because of all the gate changes! In China, nothing was handicap accessible but there was always someone who would just walk up grab half of the stroller and would help me carry him up 3 steps or 12 steps, it didn't matter. We've had complete strangers help us carry him up escalators even.
Instead of complaining forever this, my advice is this: Whenever you're out and you see someone struggling with a stroller, wheelchair, or whatever, just go help them. It can be as little as holding the door open for someone or assisting someone up over the curb. Trust me it doesn't go unnoticed and it is greatly appreciated!!
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Aunt Linda & Uncle Jim