Sailing to Mobility Freedom on the streets of India:

Louis, who has been a paraplegic for over 13 years, is undergoing human embryonic stem cell therapy.

Here we go back to Delhi (January 2010) for Round 5 of approx. 6 of our “medical tourism.” As long as something keeps happening, I have to keep going back. And something keeps happening. So, we stocked up on some freeze dried camping meals and bought the plane tickets. See y’all in February!

Old news…

Here’s the recap…

Dr. Geeta Shroff of NuTech MediWorld took ONE (donated left over from a fertility procedure) human egg seven years ago, fertilized it and has been harvesting 2 day old embryonic stem cells from there ever since. That’s it. There ain’t no massive killing of fetuses on a daily basis to harvest their cells. ONE egg. Which basically would be classified as medical waste. Therapy consists of transplanting these cells into the patient intramuscularly, intravenously and directly into the damaged spinal cord area. This occurs over a two to three year period of time. The first session is 8 weeks long. Quadriplegics stay for 12 weeks. After 3 to 6 month respites, the next sessions are 2 to 4 weeks long. After 3 years, we go to once a year.

Stem cells are basically stupid. They don’t know what type body cells they are supposed to be. Injected into the liver, they become liver cells. Injected into the heart, they become heart cells. Injected into the spinal cord, they become spinal cord cells. Spinal cord cells, or neurons, are the ones that send messages from your brain to your organs, muscles and limbs. After injury, they regrow like any other body cells but, oh sooooo slowly. Almost imperceptibly. The idea here is to add healthy cells to the damaged area to replace the damage.

In addition to injections, there is physical therapy six days a week. Besides building muscles and neurons, we have to train them. Stretching and moving and balancing and weight lifting. Leading to wearing leg braces to stand and walk. Eventually, we will graduate to smaller braces and then no braces. Go from walker to crutches to a cane.

Several years ago, Geron corporation of California submitted a 22,000 page request to the FDA (Food & Drug Administration) to conduct a phase one trial on people with hesc (human embryonic stem cells). They were approved in January, 2009. They will inject hesc and anti rejection drugs at the injury site of ten spinal injury patients two weeks after they sustain the injury. The test is to determine if hesc is safe. So, they will then wait a year to see if the patient rejects the hesc and/or develops tumors. At that point, they should apply for a phase two study to determine if hesc can treat spinal cord injuries.

Of course, Dr. Shroff knows after 7 years of treating over 700 patients and I know after 2 years of treatment that there won’t be any rejections or tumors and the treatment will improve the patients. But, Geron’s gotta do what they gotta do to get their treatment FDA approved for use in the US. In the meantime, I’ll be going back to India in January for Round 5 because that’s where the future is already the present.

And now the latest…

We spent a few days in New Jersey visiting family and friends before boarding the big silver bird enroute to India. Fortunately, we had enough air miles to get an upgrade to Business/First. A much more civilized way to travel. We flew a slightly less northern polar route and the pilot easily found Delhi airport in the fog/smog. Temperatures have been running between 40 and 60 degrees with 98% overnight humidity. But, once safely on the ground, the pilot couldn’t find the terminal! I won’t blame him because visibility was so bad that I couldn’t even find the edge of the runway looking out the window. We spent close to an hour sitting around before the ‘Follow Me’ truck showed up and guided us to the gate. Reading the newspaper the next day, we found that the much vaunted low visibility ground control system suffered cut cables caused by some other civil construction and the Chinese built ground radar that was delivered 6 months ago hadn’t been installed because the Chinese technicians couldn’t get top secret clearance to the restricted location site. Welcome to India.

We were met by our good friend, Opi, and driven to the clinic through the surreal foggy streets. Welcomed like returning royalty by what little staff was working so late at night. We settled in and tried to adjust to the time zone.

View from our room

Part of the staff shortage might be that there were no patients here the last week of the year. Everyone got a little time off. Time to get back in the groove! Gavin and Kristin arrived the day before us. Two more couples are due in the next day or two and more later in the week. I guess I get the first PT slot Monday morning.

Not much noise outside our window this morning. Fog? Sunday? Still New Year’s weekend? The street outside is partially closed/one way due to Metro construction? All of the above! Very strange not to hear the continuous driving and honking. Looks like a few new buildings are up or going up. Several old places have come down. It’ll be a really nice street in a few years. Of course, there’s dust and dirt in the air.

Found a few nice new amenities at NuTech. Several single bulb light fixtures have been replaced by fluorescent tubes. I can see! The PT room has been rearranged and enlarged. And some things never change. Still climbing from the 24” wheelchair onto the 36” bed. Still squeezing out the mini bathroom transfers. And the food? Yes, there seems to be a new chef. Or he has a new cookbook. However, not to my taste. I’m bringing this guy my own cookbook. I’m not sure if last night’s dinner was supposed to be this way or was it clean out the refrigerator night. Salad with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and pineapple. Chicken stuffed with olives and nuts in a brown sauce with apple chunks. Brown rice with peppers, onions, corn, peas, olives. And a side of potatos and string beans.

The lasagna had two noodles! One on each side of a layer of chicken and covered with and covering the vegetables.

Indian food is standard lunch fare. I’m reduced to tomato and cheese sandwiches. Well I can spice that up with a can of tuna from the B Mart. Where can I find a package of Oscar Meyer bologna?

There’s construction at the Green Park market. Seems like they’re trying to level out the area in front of the stores with cement and tiles. Of course, there are stairs from the street up to the level of the stores. Did someone say ‘accessible’?

On the most important front, I’m getting stem cells and PT. Looking forward to more progress.

Internet connectivity has been sporadic. Is it Comcast? The local servers? Don’t know for sure except that it’s sure annoying.

The Red Death:

Before going out for a procedure, they did blood and urine tests. Surprise, surprise, a UTI (urinary tract infection). Could be our less than sterile conditions. Could be the water. Could be that I just get 8 to 10 of them a year and today’s the day. Wait a minute! I was on 3 days of monocef injectible antibiotics and still on 5 days or oral antibiotics when I took that test. Must have killed the wrong germs. Or maybe I should have studied harder? I’m not good with tests.

So the sister comes in that night and gives me half a dozen little red pills (phenazopyrdine hydrochloride/pyridium) with the instructions to take one tablet three times a day starting now. Ok. One pill down. I’m going to bed.

Yours truly is a lazy bum. I use a condom catheter and a night bag so I don’t have to wake up and use a straight catheter during the night.

The following morning when I wake up, low and behold, the night bag is full of RED urine! Ack! I’m bleeding to death! No…No…No. It doesn’t have the proper consistency of blood. What the hell’s going on here?

Yo! Doc? “No problem. It’s just the medicine.” Well, why didn’t someone warn me before my blood pressure went through the roof and I almost had a stroke? Welcome to India.

Time to go home. The usual routine of fighting with the authorities to not get me separated from my wheelchair. I finally got their approval after having it run through the extra large baggage xray. And I’m glad they are conscientious.

After 26 of 28 days of fog and IGI airport delays, we had a beautiful clear night in Delhi. Ain’t no way we’re gonna have a Delhi fog delay. So, we sat at the airport because the flight in from NJ was delayed an hour and 40 minutes because of weather in NJ! Aargh!

Down the jetway for the second security screening. Oh, no! The xray machine is out of order. Are they going to hand screen 260 passengers and all their carryons? Finally, someone got the brilliant idea to borrow the x-ray machine from a neighboring jet way and we were on our way.

We flew coach. We had the whole row of 3 seats just for the 2 of us. Nice? I don’t know. I think it was in the designated children’s section. There were toddlers in front of us, toddlers behind us and toddlers across the aisle. They were all around and y’all know how well they like to sit still and sleep on the plane.

I figured there would be a jungle at home with all the landscaping overgrowing with five weeks of no pruning. But, two of those weeks had nights in the 30’s and most of the landscaping was in need of trimming because the plants were more withered and/or dead. Oh, well. Home, sweet, home.