Sunday and Monday, January 14th and 15th - Day 2 and 3 in Hangzhou, China

Good evening everyone,

Maria, Tori and I are now adapting to an entirely new and very foreign culture. We are discovering all of the language, food, currency, transportation, habits and mannerisms of the Chinese people in general. I'll provide more details on my observations and the specific differences seen in future updates. The time change has also been interesting and Maria still is the most challenged but she is slowly waking up later and later each morning. Today she awoke at 5:30am but said she was up for a little while before that. Tori and I haven't had much problems on the sleeping front and I would dare say we are adapted already.

Tori has been adjusting well to her new nurses and doctors. Her feedings are also fully back to normal at this point. Her daily schedule is now as follows:

8:30am - Team inspection. Doctors and nurses visit Tori, take her temperature, check her skin, discuss progress and any issues, ask questions, answer questions, etc..

10:30am-11:30am - Physical Therapy Treatment with James who is the rehabilitation doctor.

11:00am-1:00pm - Lunch time.

3:30pm-4:30pm - Acupuncture Treatment and EMS (Electronic Muscle Stimulation) with James.

This is repeated every day except Sunday when there are no treatments for Tori. Tori will be getting her first Stem Cell injection with NGF (Nerve Growth Factor) Wednesday afternoon. The subsequent 4 remaining injection schedules will then be determined as well.

Today Tori had her first PT (Physical Therapy) session and James twisted, turned, massaged and stretched almost every part of her body. Tori did very well for most of it and watched James quite closely. She did let out some good cries and screams when James would hit the stretching threshold. This will be very beneficial for Tori as she hasn't had this level of PT sessions for months since our insurance company quit covering it...

James came back again during the afternoon and did the first acupuncture session with Tori as well. Maria couldn't watch as he gently poked the tiny needles in Tori's arms, hands, fingers, legs and feet. Tori didn't care too much for it either... By the time they were all inserted Tori was definitely upset but Maria and I held her hands down and started a movie which eventually calmed her. We might end up giving her a zanaflex 30 minutes prior to acupuncture to calm her nerves a bit. I'm sure she'll be ready for James next time he enters the room :-)

James finished the afternoon treatment by using an electronic muscle stimulator on Tori\'s lower legs. He will be relocating it on all of Tori's limbs during our month long stay and it is supposed to help with Tori's muscle tone and spasticity. She could certainly use some help there as James indicated she is one of the 'tightest' patients he has seen...

The nurses really like Tori and she responds nicely to them as well. Sophie, Kitty, Jerry, Ella, Christine, Judy are just some of their names. They are also intrigued with some of the medical tools we brought with us like the digital ear thermometer and the digit pulseox which clamps onto Tori's finger for instant heart rate and blood oxygen level measurements. These tools are state of the art here as mercury filled thermometers are normally used and I haven't even seen the pulseox monitors that are in place.

Wendy ended up taking us to the giant supermarket again to get some more items. This time Maria came with as we had a nurse watching Tori for a little while. There certainly was alot of entertainment and excitement just as predicted in the last update!! For starters, the supermarket was even more crowded than before which I didn't think could happen. From what I understand, there was a massive sale on rice and oil which are the main cooking ingredients for the Chinese. The stares, smiles and giggles were constant as we worked our way through the store with calls of "leuwi" (spelling not guaranteed here...) which means "foreigners". Again, we were surely the only non-Chinese among thousands of people. Of course Maria drew the most attention and soon there were numerous camera phones snapping pictures of her and groups of teenage girls following us around the store. The children also took quite the liking to us as well. It certainly was a new experience for us and Wendy seemed to get the biggest kick out of all this because she could of course understand all of the comments heard around us!! There is something else I don't get to feel to often in the USA. I'm only about 5'9" and while waiting in the massive checkout line to leave it was kind of neat to able to see over everyone else standing all around us!! :-) Now I just need to find a nearby basketball court so I can play center for a while ;-) hehe

We continued on after shopping by taking a small tour of the local area. Wendy showed us several restaurants and was able to find a fitness gymnasium and a hotel fitness center close by. Exercising allows us to keep at least some of our sanity so we decided to purchase some passes at the hotel fitness center which is about 2 miles away. They have an awesome pool which I will be mostly using for lap swimming and Maria will use the fitness center complete with treadmills and resistance systems. We will more than likely try to alter our visits accordingly so that one of us is always with Tori.

I believe that is all for today from cold, gray and foggy Hangzhou, China.

Thank you for all of the support!!

Tim, Maria and Tori