Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday - November 21st through 23rd

Hello there,

I'm slightly behind again on the updates so this one will probably be a little longer than normal. Tori and our entire family continues to sleep well and that is always great news. On Monday morning we tried a new adventure - Tori went to school!! :-) We have always been somewhat hesitant to the idea of introducing her to a school environment but Tori has been consistently signalling 'yes' whenever she was asked about going to school. Up until this point, Megan has been coming over to the house and working with Tori from THS (Timpanogos High School) which is one block away. Tori and I were able to sit in Megan's assisted education classroom where we met the other teachers and many of the student assistants. Several of the students were classmates of Tori's and were very excited to finally have her back at school with them. We didn't sit through a class or anything this time as we simply toured the classroom as well as the entire school. Tori also held the class rabbit who ended up leaving a giant bunch of hair on her lap :-) We spent about 75 minutes at the school and Tori did very well in the school environment. She was never agitated and actually fell asleep at the very end since we visited during her normal late morning nap time. Classes were not out when we toured the hallways but she did fine having the limited number of students passing by her. We didn't test being around massive amounts of students this time.

Our goal will be to have Tori attend school once or twice a week for a limited amount of time and with either Maria or I always present. We are also debating when this will actually start because Tori absolutely cannot get or be sick prior to our trip to China on January 11. We will cancel the trip and reschedule if she is ill because the risk is far too high and her safety would probably be in jeopardy. So we may wait until February upon her return from China before going back to school. To be continued...

Meredyth also stopped by for an ST session with Tori. Much more picture association and question type activities. There are a wide variety of these and they are hard to describe without just giving a few examples: Two cards, one with a fruit and one with a vegetable - "Which one is a fruit?". Two cards, one with an animal and one with an object - "Which one is an animal?". Two cards, one with a scarecrow and one with a glass of milk - "Which one scares birds away?". Etc.. Tori is usually 100% correct on all of her answers until she becomes disinterested and just closes her eyes and ignores the activity... That means that it is time to switch the activity of course ;-) Meredyth then used the yes/no switch and hooked another to the disco ball and computer where music was played after a switch press. That lasted for a while longer then they closed with some tongue and mouth exercises. The whole session lasts about an hour.

We are now fully engaged in preparing for Tori's upcoming trip to China for stem cell treatment. Maria's and my passport are up to date and Tori will get her picture taken for hers today. We will have to expedite the passport and visa process to meet the January 11 departure date. Since the news of Tori's trip has spread so quickly I thought I would take a second and answer some of the questions I have been getting. First, there is abundant information on the internet about stem cells for those who wish to gain a better understanding. Now for some Stem Cell 101: There are basically 3 types of stem cells - Adult, Umbilical and Embryonic. Stem cells are 'Parent' cells which means they can become many other specialized cell types (bone, muscle, cartilage, BRAIN NEURONS, etc.) Embryonic stem cells can become a wider variety of cells than umbilical or adult stem cells but they currently carry more risk as well and of course they are the ones where all of the ethical and religious issues arise. Tori will be receiving umbilical cord stem cells over embryonic stem cells based on the following scientific data which I borrowed from Michael's site:

"Experts acknowledge that embryonic stem (ES) cells are unsafe for direct medical uses. In general their problems arise from a basic cause—ES cells are designed to function in embryos, not in adult (postnatal) tissues. Their genetic programming doesn’t work in adults; nor can they properly sense or respond to local signals in adult tissues. But since they’re programmed to grow, if they’re not rejected ES cells can grow out of control into clumps of random cells. These non-cancerous, but often fatal tumors are called teratomas."

Here is the bottom line. Tori suffered severe anoxic brain damage and many of her 'brain cells' or Neurons have been destroyed. They cannot heal, they are basically dead and gone... The remaining Neurons will try and 're-wire' themselves to compensate for the loss of the others. The additional stem cells will provide the opportunity to create MORE Neurons. Of course the hope is that they will replace some of those that are dead and eventually provide us with much more of the Tori that we unfortunately lost.

China leads the world in stem cell research and practice and America continues to fall behind... Perhaps some day we will not have to travel to China to get Tori the help she desperately needs. But until then we will do what we have to. Here is the parent website ( http://www.stemcellschina.com/ ) of where Tori is going in China. The Patient Blogs and Patient Experiences located in the right column are very interesting as people describe their stem cell treatments in detail. It provides a great perspective on what to expect.

Thanks for hanging in there on this long update and the entire Schmanski Family wishes all of you a Happy Thanksgiving!!

Sincerely,

-Tim