Update #3

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Hey Hey~

I guess I'll start w/ yesterday. So I finally started therapy and my therapist doesn't speak "a lick of English" my dad keeps saying. He smells like B.O. too unfortunately. He began working with my hands and arms; stretching them and such. Then, I did stretches and bicep/tricep workouts.

After that, I had this test done called TMS to see if my nerves were still active. When a person becomes paralyzed, the nerve signals to the brain are lost. So, the person can still have active nerves but the signal has just been disconnected at the site of injury OR your nerves can become nonactive and this is what this test is determining. The neurophysiologist places these patches first on my legs/hands; then on my head. These patches are hooked to his computer and a shocking machine. Everytime he would send shocks to my body, the computer would record results. When my legs were shocked, I couldn't feel it of course but they would jump all over the place. When the left sides of my hands were shocked (w/ palm facing up), my thumbs would move. When the right sides of my hands were shocked, all of my other fingers would move. So, my entire nervous system is still active. yay! That means there is still hope. However, when he shocked my head... which felt like I was being struck by lightening (oh yes I got a picture)...

there was only one response- my left hand's thumb. By shocking my head, we found out that my thumb is still connected in some way in my nervous system which was literally a complete shock. We weren't expecting any movement.

And today, we FINALLLLY got the confirmation that tomorrow, they will begin the step by step treatment process. However, it won't be til next week that I get the stem cell injection. We spoke to the doctor in charge of it.

Wow and I say gonna alot but no one here can understand it or pronounce it.

I had an MRI taken today of my brain and guess what? I'm normal. My mom said she didn't believe the results... We had to take my nose piercing out and it hurt sooo bad b/c it was dry.

We went to the market again and I bought a headband but my dad bought 2 lbs of ham. haha We couldn't figure out how to tell them 1/2 lb. And guess what we had for lunch? Cabbage and meatball soup. And what about dinner? Mystery meat w/ rice. Doesn't that sound scrumptous? So we all just ate ham.