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Written by Kristin Ricci
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Tuesday, 12 May 2009 08:40 |
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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.
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Written by Mike Ricci
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Tuesday, 12 May 2009 08:28 |
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 Drew received his final stem cell treatment via IV on friday. Everything went very smoothly and he only complained while the IV was being placed. After the needle is removed he always likes to oversee the application of the tape. When the nurse removed the IV on Saturday, he was also very calm, cool, and collective. He likes to watch the tape and tegaderm peeled away. He also likes to watch the nurses remove the hep lock and he always cranes his neck around to watch wear it will thrown out. Then he definately makes sure that we apply pressure on the site with a cotton ball. Since we went through this 8 times, the little rat definately had the routine down and he likes to rule the roost when he could.
This particular treatment was very interesting because there were so many different nationalities in one room. There was a little boy from Wales with his mother who is also Welsh but her husband is Australian. There was another mother and son from America but she was born in Jamaica. Also, there was another little boy from Sweden but his father was from Spain. The patient coordinator from Beike, Luca Ricci, was from Italy. The nurses were Chinese. Then finally the three of us from America but Drew likes it better when I say we are from planet stinky.
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Written by Mike Ricci
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Sunday, 26 April 2009 22:09 |
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 We know its been awhile since our last update but Drew has been keeping us busy full-time! He was only supposed to have one treatment last week but he had a cold the previous Thursday and wasn't able to get his treatment. Rather than getting an IV treatment we opted to postpone the Friday treatment to the following Monday in order to get a spinal. Luckily everything worked out with scheduling and we won't miss out on any treatments or have to stay longer. On the flip side we had to pump Chinese cough medicine in him all weekend and it is the worst smelling liquid on the planet. We ended up giving him five 1 ml squirts with potato chips between each squirt and he took it a lot better than I would have! His cough and runny nose went away on Sunday just before the Anesthesiologist stopped by to check him out and his spinal treatment went fine on Monday.
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Written by Kristin Ricci
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Tuesday, 05 May 2009 10:57 |
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 Drew had his final lumbar puncture on Monday. His last stem cell treatment is via IV on Friday. These are always much easier for all patients. The nurse places the IV then you kick back in the infusion room and let the good times roll. When the stem cells and nerve growth factors are finished infusing, patients can mosey on with their day. Lumbar puncture days are always harder to get through because patients have to lie flat for 6 hours afterwards to prevent nasty spinal headaches. Drew usually tolerates these days pretty well because he has the chance to watch 6 hours of uninterrupted television. However, we have had some issues with nausea and vomiting on this trip. Last time all of his lumbar punctures were done on this floor without anesthesia. For this trip, he needed anesthesia to keep still for the procedure. We've been giving him 5ml of Domperidone a few hours before he eats after the procedure and it usually works. Domperidone is used in Canada sometimes like Reglan is used in the US. It didn't do the trick this last treatment. I find that whenever Drew has explosive amounts of vomiting, he ALWAYS sprays whoever is in the room like a garden hose. I wonder what the nurses were thinking when they ran in to see what the commotion was and they saw vomit princess with grilled cheese dripping from her hair.
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Written by Mike Ricci
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Monday, 20 April 2009 05:15 |
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 On Saturday we took Drew to the Hangzhou Safari Park with his buddy Abby (who just left today). The Hangzhou Safari Park, not to be confused with the Hangzhou Zoo) is unlike any we've ever been to in the US. It took about an hour to get there from Xiaoshan but it was well worth the drive. The trip there was very scenic and we even passed by the photo studio where Drew was a baby model the last time he was here!
It has two distinct parts, the safari park and traditional zoo. You start by driving your vehicle through the safari park and seeing all kinds of animals in larger, more open habitats. For the most part every animal's habitat was pretty open and about the same as you'd see in zoos back home. Honestly I could write a whole article about everything the park has to offer but you could read the More Hanzhou article about it and get the same idea. Once we got tickets at the gate and drove through the chaos they called two lines of cars we were on our way. Within the first 10 minutes of the drive-thru safari we were dodging kangaroos and watching wolves go nuts for people tossing pieces of mean to them. Little did I know this was nowhere near the craziest part of the park...
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