Week 125 – Day 2 “Doctors and physical appraisal”

Day 2

An early rise so that Jill could have her blood drawn (6am) and an early shower at 6.30am for me and we had hot water so I then organised Jill to shower because the Doctors round start at 8.30am. Fortunately they didn’t arrive in our room till 9 and Jill was sitting up ready. About 5 doctors came in and repeated many of the tests Jill has done before. They asked lots of questions and it was much easier to converse as there was an interpreter with them. The weather was misty early this morning I thought it was smog but by 10 it was clearing and this afternoon bright and clear about 19C. it must be colder overnight one of the night nurses came in with a fur collared Jacket over her uniform.

About 11 we were collected by the Owen the physical trainer in charge of the rehabilitation treatment and over the next hour he put Jill through all the physical exercise she could think of – stand, sit, roll over, bark (only joking). This is certainly a vast improvement on Nanshan where we were given 6 tasks to do but no previous evaluation. Tomorrow we start in earnest with acupuncture at 8.10am, electric wave therapy at 8.40 then after lunch physical therapy. Wednesday has been confirmed as the first stem cell injection by IV.

While Jill rested this afternoon I was taken shopping by Lucy. She has only been at the hospital for two months and was at University before that and had majored in English. We went by taxi, about 10 minutes (8 RMB each way about $4 in total) to a shopping MART – fairly large similar to the Rainbow Shopping centre in Shenzhen. There were various types of products on each level, from fresh fish swimming in tanks to electrical, clothes and furniture. We brought some essential cleaning products as well as milk, cheese, margarine etc. While looking for cereal we were approached by a woman who introduced herself as Sheila (American) she observed me searching the shelves and asked what for – Then over the next several minutes she told me where to buy from and instructed Lucy to take me. Her husband is here designing golf courses, been here for 12 months. They have been in Asia for 27 years and say Qingdao is fantastic. Directly over the road from the hospital a huge complex is being built which will include shopping, swimming pool , Hotel , Conference Centre etc – supposed to be completed by December , just to late.

Lucy organised another desk for us as there is no room on the computer desk to eat at. She also took our order for a pizza. I must be getting old, we said not to order western food – a. too expensive and b. taste is different. Well the Pizza tasted like a pizza but cost about 3-4 times a Domino’s pizza. With Skype I have spoken to Bill Pugh – he and wife Babs received stem cells at Nanshan and now live next to the hospital. Then for the next hour we had a three way conversation with Chris , Nicole and Allison and Chris very interesting to be talking with 12 million other online Skype users. Any one that would like to talk to us while we are here our Skype name is: mac.jill.keenan , just remember the three hour time difference. You will be able to see when we are on line.

It is nearly eight o’clock and Jill is reading “The Brain that changes Itself “and I am starting to get tired.

See you tomorrow on the net.