Stem Cells - Part I

Well, we are just about loaded up and ready to hit the road. We should be well on our way by 8:PM tonight. We are heading to San Diego for the night, then at 11 tomorrow morning we will be picked up at the hotel and head over the border. We are tentative for a noon injection, but they don't really stick to close time lines so it may be a while to wait. After we are done we will be brought back to the hotel where we will hang out and then get back to Santa Monica Friday after the morning rush hour ends.

This is Casey's furthest distance trip as well as first over night. It is a really big deal to all of us and I am sure it will not be easy, but it should be well worth it. We stopped her food a little while ago so that she should have an easier time with reflux in the car. We also medicated her so that she will be a little more relaxed. The trip online looks to be about 2 hours. If we make it in 3 I think we would have done pretty good. Then tomorrow morning they say it is less than an hour from the hotel to the clinic.

We have packed all of Casey's favorite toys so hopefully she will be happy to hang out at the hotel. We will post details and pictures as soon as we can after returning home. I am sure it will take at least a few days to get Casey back on her schedule so don't be alarms if we don't post until later in the week.

Christmas and more

Oh wow, it has been nearly a month since our last post. Let's see, where did we leave off? Tim mentioned that we are looking into stem cell injections for Casey. We are finalizing all of those details now. It looks like we will head to San Diego after Tim gets off work and traffic dies down on Jan 31. Then on Feb 1 (most likely afternoon) we will be picked up at the hotel and taken over the border. We will get her injections and then they will take us back to the hotel. We decided we will stay one more night in San Diego and head back to Santa Monica on Friday. At first we had considered doing it all in one day, but with how much Casey hates cars, and shots, we decided it would be MUCH easier on her if we go down early and give her some time to calm down after the drive before the shots, then again after the shots before having to do a long drive again. It's going to be a really hard trip for her (well all of us really), but we are looking forward to it.

HBOT went really well. I was scared at first being that I could not take in the suction machine (only a bulb). With the medications we gave her to basically sedate her during the sessions, and clearing her out really good before starting up, out of the 40 sessions we only had to have them rapid decomp twice to get us out. Once was early on and we got her calm and went back in and the other was just 10 minutes before the session would have ended. So really, she did fantastic. We will most likely do another session of 40 later in 2007. So for at least a little while I can wear jewelry again :)

Casey had a wonderful Christmas and New Year. She really likes all of the great stuff she got. Lots of clothes, books and toys. We have been doing lots of reading and she loves it. Thanks again to everyone for all of the warm wishes and thoughtful gifts.

Casey is just over 13 pounds now. She had a while that she just didn't gain at all. Over the past few weeks she has put on a small bit, and she is doing pretty good on feeds. She has some days that are better than others, but all in all she is making progress. Slow progress, but progress none the less.

We will post more as we get more details about the stem cell trip. We hope everyone is doing well.