Pics of Rehab

Hello,

Hope all is well!
I had my bone marrow taken out of my hip yesterday. The doctor was so precise-everything he told me while he was doing it was dead on. Except the pain. I chose to not have any anesthesia. I wanted to go through it without because I want to know how much it hurts to get this and every other procedure(EMG, blood gas, spinal tap, needles in my tongue etc.) done. Reason being-it will make me fight that much harder to not have to go through this again. At least that's what I'm telling myself or maybe it's my gigantic ego saying, "nothing is going to bring you down". Either way it was well worth the pain-I think-I don't want to jinx it just yet. My friend Boris from Maldovia had it when I was here in June and he had great results. I am expecting the same.

What they do is take the marrow out and then culture it into adult stem cells that are truly your own. It takes 7-10 days for them to mature. On the 16th I'm scheduled to have them put back in my spine. Otherwise things are going well. There is this great couple-Phil & Barbara from Prince Edward Island in Canada. Barbara has a similar disease to ALS-it's called motor neuron disease-the difference is she has had it for 7 years(gets progressively worse but not terminal). Gabriel from Legrange, NY(2hrs away)-spinal cord. Brandon from Wilton, CT-spinal cord. Dana from Trinidad-spinal cord. And a famous gymnast that was on the Chinese Olympic team-spinal cord-she was a quad now she has feeling in her legs. We all went to the Sheraton hotel and had an american feast. It was nice getting to know everyone outside of the hospital. And my mom found a shopping buddy in Shannon(Brandon's mom) from Wilton. Shenyang is nice and colorful. It's 300 miles northeast of Beijing. It has over 6 million people. All of the olympic soccer this summer is being played here. The doctors and nurses are truly grand and my therapists have gotten more out of me here. They have pushed me to the brink-which is how I like it.

The internet here is unstable-on one day and off the next but my blackberry is working all the time. So I'm connected. I can access this blog only when the internet is up but texts and emails I get all the time. I have recieved about 200 emails and texts since I've been here-THANKS AND I LOVE YA!

Talk Soon,
Drew
"The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones"
This is so true about me right now--I am moving a mountain(ALS) by carrying away small stones.