Days 3 and 4 have been filled with many adventures. Marie began her therapy. Therapy here is very aggressive. The praise "no pain no gain" truly is their mission statement. Marie began with acupuncture that is nothing compare to North American acupuncture The needle are twice as long and they hook them to a machine that sense electrical impulse to the area. It was very painful at first, I had to hold Marie's hand and talk her through it. She will get this treatment five days a week. The physical therapy, and occupational therapy is individualized for Marie which consists of morning and afternoon sessions. Morning
is "voice" which Marie wears a collar that sends electrical impulse to the throat muscles in the hope to improve swallowing and speech. Then they do a lot of work on her left arm and hand. The afternoon is spend on doing exercise on balance. Marie was so exhausted that she couldn't finish her session. She is still experiencing a lot of jet lag and is not sleeping though the night. The doctor gave her a sleeping pill last night, and it is the first night she has had a good sleep. Thank goodness that I brought food with me. The first night we went out, we couldn't find a restaurant that was wheel chair accessible. We gave up. The one at the Hospital has no English menu and we didn't know what we were ordering, it was very frustrating.
We have now meet the other families here on the floor. Four families from Canada, two from Italy, two from the states and one from Hungry. There are four others we haven't meet yet. They have been here for two weeks and told me of two restaurant that have English menu that we can get to. Also there is a supermarket up the street. I will hire a care giver so that I can go and get some food to cook here in the hospital. The supermarket is not wheel chaired accessible.
The elevators are also a challenge in patience. We are on the 14th. floor. All the OT and PT are done on the 4 floor. There are so many people that come to this hospital each day that it has taken up to 20 minutes to get into an elevator. I am learning to be aggressive.
Tomorrow will be Marie's big day with her first stem cell injections.
We miss you all.