A day in the life of Dena.

Today was a day in the life of Dena. I really enjoyed it, and I learned a lot from a man who has devoted his life to finding “something” to help his daughter. Dena is in her 30’s and was traveling in Egypt when the bus she was riding on crashed. Dena got the worse of the injuries when she hit her head on a rock on the ground that the bus slid over. She suffered quite an extensive brain injury and is left paralyzed on her right side. She can no longer speak, hold her head up straight, or communicate. While Dena is in China, she has a very specific routine. Here is a day in the life of Dena. Well, here is the pictures of Dena's day. I am at an international Hotel right now, paying for internet, because the internet in the hospital is NO WORKING!!!!!!!!! ahhhhh! During the day that I followed Dena around, I didn't take my computer, but a pencil and pad of paper, these things of course I forgot at the hospital, and I am not going back to the hospital, then back to this hotel so I am only going to be able to upload the pictures from Dena's day, and just try to butcher my descriptions of her day. Here we go.

First, it started with Dena(yellow) Willie(physical therapist) and Bob(Dena's dad) holding her while she got through her Standing exercise. Any time Bob didn't have a good hold of Dena's left arm, her good arm, she would strike out at poor willie and give him a left hook right to the head. Willie is a good guy, and cares about the patients. He put up with the abuse with a smile on his face. Here we have Dena in her E-Stem time. Now, on that pad of paper I was talking about earlier, I had times and all kinds of stuff all written out. It sucks, because I was going to do a really good job on a Day in the life of Dena. Now, it is going to be kind of half assed. But, maybe I will think of a way around that. Who knows. OK, so E-Stem is electronic stimulation. They hook these pads up to parts of Dena's body that supposedly has no feeling, and is paralyzed. Then these pads send a little electronic stimulation through the muscles into the nerves, and cause a reaction through the brain and what not. It makes her muscles jump. It is suppose to help create new nerve interaction to the brain. Ya know, new connections and what not. OK, next we have Acupuncture. In acupuncture, Dena gets needles in her head, neck and 2 on her right arm(paralyzed arm) I am not entirely sure what they are supppose to do, and I am not exactly sure how effective it is. But I do know this. The Chinese have been doing Acupuncture for like 4,000 years. I am just a Westerner who has his doubts. But hey, I have been getting Acupuncture since I started treatment here.............and havn't noticed any difference...oh wait.

;-)

After Acupuncture, Dena gets a little bit of a rest. And, as you can see it is the only time she is actually happy. She doesn't cry, she even gives us the thumbs up. Which I am not exactly sure what it means. But I like to think she knows what is going on, and is saying, "Mikey, all is well."

I don't know if I mentioned this, but when Dena got into the bus accident in Egypt, she had a 3 or maybe an 8 month old baby back home. Her son is now 3 or almost 3 and Dena hardly even knows who he is. That is just horrible, and hard for me to understand. Very difficult for me to wrap my brain accross why this happened to her. But, I do believe that God has a plan for Dena. I am excited to see what will come of all this. Next thing in Dena's day, is physical therapy with Jennifer. Jennifer really works Dena. Working the muscles that don't usually get used, and making sure feet, and fingers aren't getting stretched into a permanently wrong position. I learned that this happens to people who can't use their muscles. Like take the foot for instance. If it isn't constantly worked into a 90 degree angle with the ground, it will go parallel with the leg. The achilles tendon will stretch it out. So, all this exercise keeps that from happening. Now, jennifer takes Dena, and does a standing exercise. This is to get Dena back on her own 2 feet. Dena hates this exercise, and is super sensitive to touch on her right side....even though it is supposedly completely paralyzed by what the American doctors say. Something that the American doctors say will never regain feeling. BUT, every time I touch, tickle or tap Dena on her right side, she reacts immideatly. She has to feel something. Is it the Acupuncture, is it the stem cells, is it the physical therapy, or is it a mix of several of the above??? I do not know. Next, Dena gets strapped into this machine for 45min. It does what I was talking about earlier. Working her feet, and back muscles. If she would only hold her own head up, she could maybe hold herself up better is standing exercise. Dena usually hates this, and the only she can express herself is to cry, or punch people with her good arm. How frustrating it must be in her head.

Well, this concludes A day in the life of Dena. It was really hard for me to watch some of the things, just because she seemed so miserable. But, I love spending time with Dena, even if she does try to punch me, pinch me, or rip of my facial hair. I can't help but want to will her back to good health again, so she can go on with an active life style, and enjoy her son, and let her son have a mother again. WHY?

As for my day, it was great. Chilled with the Chinese, took my mom to the bank, and ate some yummy pork & beans. After all that I got some stem cells. The stem cells leave me wired, kind of like drinking 5 or 6 energy drinks. Except you don’t come down from the energy surge until the next day. In my opinion, it’s good. Shows that the stem cells are doing something. And that’s what we want……something. This is an interesting shot I took while the I.V. was hooked up. The I.V. leads to the bag of umbilical cord stem cells. They kind of are colored similar to someone's pee when they are really dehydrated. Yummy, S-T-E-M C-E-L-L-S.


God is good,

Mikey