First Lumbar Injection Tomorrow

Sierra has had three treatments by IV injection. The last two will be lumbar injections, with the first tomorrow. Please pray that it would go well.

A Walk to Remember

This evening Rosetta and I decided to take a walk in the neighborhood of the hospital. We were a couple blocks away when we decided to turn down what looked to be a small alleyway.

It certainly was narrow, but not small by any stretch of the imagination. I bet it went a good mile. It had all sorts of little shops with apartments over them for people to live in.

As we were about a quarter of the way down, there was a traffic jam. There wasn't enough room for two cars to pass. No one wanted to make room for each other. We weaved our way in between just like everyone else and continued on thru.

A little further down we discovered a side alley to this alley where there was a meat and produce market as you can see in the pictures below.

Fresh meat, just laying out on the table waiting to be purchased. It looked VERY fresh.

If chicken feet are your thing to eat, look no further. There are plenty here.

See those ducks behind you? You're next, buddy

We came back out on the street and perused the other shops which sold everything from electronics to cigarettes.

We walked the rest of the alley and came back out on the main road.

Typical street scene complete with motorized rickshaw

Men being driven back to the yard after a day of work.

Everywhere we go, the women admire Sierra.

This man was hanging out with the women in the above picture and seemed amused that we wanted to take his picture.

Two women talking. One drives an electric bike and the other and electric rickshaw.

Posted from Hangzhou at 9:03 PM on April 22.

Hospital Pictures

We thought we'd show you a little of where we are staying.

The full name of the hospital, as shown in the photo is Zhejiang Xiaoshan Hospital. Beike Biotech is on the 20th floor.

An outside view of the hospital

One of the balloon vendors that stand outside the front of the hospital.

They are not official taxi drivers but a lot of people wait around the front of the hospital and make a quick buck driving people around the city.

The following video shows you our room.

Posted from Hangzhou at 8:35 PM on April 22.

Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow!

Today in therapy Sierra did something incredible! She sat unsupported! This is truly a miracle. She has never been able to do this. Every time we would try to sit her up she would go flopping backwards.

Here is a video clip of it. Sorry it is sideways. :-P I keep forgetting that if I hold the camera sideways the video will be sideways.




Posted from Hangzhou at 11 AM on April 22, 2009

Standing on the Promises

We came to China in faith that God would do a mighty work. We were also told to not expect any improvements for 4 months.

I don't know if this was due to stem cells or not, but Sierra stood for 2.5 minutes yesterday! Her previous record was 45 seconds.

We're excited about this but obviously we want to see her repeat this. Time will tell. Thanks for all your prayers.

Posted from Hangzhou at 8:39 AM on April 22.

Random

WEATHER

The weather here has been very nice. The temperatures have been about like there are at home. Today the high is supposed to be in the 70's and tomorrow it is supposed to be in the 80's. The other day it was nice and warm here. All the poor Yankee's were dying from the heat. We didn't even have our air conditionair on. We had about three different Chinese people come in and tell us that we could turn the air on. They were rather shocked that we did not want to turn the air on. Something that I can't figure out is that 90% of the people here seem to wear long sleeves or a jacket no matter what the weather is like.

FOOD

I am rather tired of the Chinese food. It is all so greasy. If I am going to eat greasy food, I want it to be something like fries, onion rings, etc. not Chinese stir fry or vegetables. One of the nights we were here I was dreaming that the RT Mart (which is like a Super Wal-Mart) was selling Blue Bell ice cream. It was $10. for a half gallon but I was going to buy some. Then yesterday I was dreaming about good ol' American cheese. They don't eat much cheese here.

We did bring some packaged food. Today I will cook all of our meals here instead of ordering out. We brought some blueberry muffin mix from home. I was going to attempt to make pancakes the other day. My attempt at pancakes was a miserable failure. (They don't have a stove here just a cereamic hot plate that gets way too hot for pancakes). After burning what was supposed to be a pancake, I came up with a clever plan. I took a ceramic coffee mug, poured some batter into it and then put it in the microwave. Ta da! Blueberry blobs! If you closed your eyes and used your imagination, they could almost pass as blueberry muffins. They say that necessity is the mother of invention.

HELLO

We have gotten a kick out of how the cleaning ladies use the word "hello." Here, if you are Chinese and only know 5 English words, you use those 5 words as much as possible it doesn't make a bit of a difference if you use them correctly or not.. If the cleaning ladies just mopped they wiill say, "Hello, be careful." Jason took some dishes to the kitchen to wash and the woman said, "Hello" and then motioned for him to leave and that she would do them. They tend to use "hello" more as an attention getter than anything. What was hilarious was the other day when one of them was doing hand motions to try to tell Jason something. Neither of us understood what she was trying to say. So Jason said to her, "Hello" and motioned for her to follow him. He took her to someone who did speak English and got them to translate.

TREATMENTS and FAITH

We have been forewarned that it is very common for children who have had seizures in the past (even if they haven't had them for years) to have a few seizures after the Stem Cell Treatments. They explained why this was the case and it made sense, but I don't know if I can explain. Apparently when the stem cells get to the brain, they cause lots of activity. All that activity can sometimes be overload at first for a kid who has had seizures. Thus initially it causes more seizures. However, in the long run, it reduces the seizures. A mom here was telling us that her daughter usually has several seizures every day. She had some pretty bad seizures eight hours after the lumbar punctures, but now that she has finished all of her treatments they have seen a reduction in seizures overall. In a way it is an indication that the stem cells are getting where they need to go.

Apparently the lumbar punctures are more likely to increase the chance of seizures than the IV because the stem cells have a direct route to the brain. We still don't know if Sierra will be getting lumbar punctures or not. Today she receives her second IV. We are hoping that she will be able to get some lumbar punctures because they are more effective. At the same time, we are a bit apprehensive about her having seizures. We know that if she does have any seizures, it will be scary for us since she hasn't had any since a week after she was born. We've been talking about and decided that we still want the lumbar punctures if she can have them. We are just preparing ourselves mentally that she may have some seizures. The verse that God has been bringing to mind every since right before we left to come here is, "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and love, and a sound mind." We know that God has brought us this far and He doesn't want us to fear what may happen. He is in control and we will entrust Him with the all the side effects and results.

To close out this post, here is the very first picture that I have ever taken of Sierra smiling. This was during her therapy. Sierra seems to like movement a lot. The only smiles we have gotten out of her have been related to movement.

Posted from Hangzhou at 9:53 AM on April 17th

Hefan Market

Today all Sierra had was physical therapy in the morning and electro therapy in the afternoon. We went to the Hefan market this afternoon

This man is selling green tea at the market place

Dairy Queen. Thats what I like about Texas China!

The below video is our driver Jack negotiating for something I wanted. As you can see, it was quite a show and 15-20 people were standing around watching. It was hilarious watching him.

All pictures and video Copyright 2009, Rosetta Fedelem

Posted from Hangzhou at 7:43 PM on April 14, 2009

Therapy and First Treatment

Last week the doctors did a lot of tests on Sierra and evaluations. She had several physical therapy sessions last week.

This was from today's therapy session. Kerri is her therapist, seen above, and she is an outstanding therapist and makes Sierra work really hard. It looks like she may be having some success teaching Sierra to roll over.

At about 2:30 this afternoon they prepared her for the treatment and put the IV in her.

Then they started the IV.

Now she is resting and listening to Tom T. Hall with me while Rosetta makes dinner. Thanks for all your prayers.


All Pictures Copyright 2009, Rosetta A. Fedelem

Posted from Hangzhou at 5:26 PM on 4/13/09

Going to Market

We decided to go see some of Hangzhou this afternoon. Our driver was Sam.

Our first stop was the cloth market where according to this sign they mangle the fabric. Then we went to the book market but the prices there were ridiculous.

Our third stop was the silk market. We got some good deals here. All in all it was a fun afternoon. We are back at the hospital now. Sierra's first treatment is tomorrow.

All pictures Copyright 2009, Rosetta Fedelem

Posted from Hangzhou at 7:28 PM on 4/12/09

He is Risen!

He is risen indeed! Today is Resurrection Sunday. We got up this morning and read about Christ's resurrection. Sadly, we didn't have a church service to go to. We plan on listening to the Easter sermon tomorrow.

We have been here 6 days now. God has been good to us. It is amazing to think of all that went into bringing this to pass and yet here we are. It is only through God's goodness that we are here.

We have been enjoying our time here. Being in a foreign country really makes us realize how much we take for granted. We are so blessed and tend to forget how good we have it. While here, I have not seen anything that resembles a church.

Have a blessed Resurrection Day and give thanks for the blessings God has given you, the best of which was sending His Son to die for our sins. But Praise God, He did not stay dead. HE IS RISEN!

Posted from Hangzhou at 2:08 PM on 4/12/09