China - Day 4 - Temple of Heaven

Good morning everyone, it's about 4:30 in the morning here and I am wide awake. It's noon yesterday at home. So maybe I will tell you what the stock market did yesterday, I wonder it that works. The Internet was down yesterday morning so I could not send anything out. Right now Linda is still asleep so I am being quite. But at 7:00 our time here the place begins to buzz. The doctors come in to check out how she slept, take her BP and looks thing over in general. Then we have breakfast around 7:30 and she starts her day. All morning she has appointments with different doctors and therapy of one kind or another or another. Dr. Wisdom, he is the Traditional Chinese Medicine, here after know as TCM, doctor. Dr. Wisdom likes the idea Linda does Ti Chee and will do it with her. When Linda woke up yesterday morning I noticed a change in her face. It was soft and had a lot of expression. The parkies out there know about the Parkinson's mask and I have been looking at it for years now. But it was almost gone. I told Linda to check her self out in the mirror and she could see it too. All afternoon Linda is hooked up to IV'S and they pour gallons of stuff into her. There is some amber stuff I asked Amy what it was and she told me it is Chinese Medicine and has no name. I said come on Amy, you are an MD, you have to know what's in there. She says it's to make the brain communicate better. When Amy came in I showed her Linda's face and she did not seem surprised. Well, whatever it is maybe something is starting to work. On Monday we have a meeting with the head Nero and he will make decision on what approach we are going to take. After breakfast Linda wanted to take a shower and have me wash her hair. The shower is pretty big here, but don't get any ideas, the water is cold and that sure takes any erotic thoughts a guy may have away. Kind of a form of Chinese birth control.

When Linda left I thought this is a good time to explore some more. So out came the bike. About half an hour away I came across this huge park called Heavenly Temple. It holds a large number of temples built around 1400 AD. Just beautiful. But what a surprise when I got in. The place was wall to wall Chinese. And everyone of them was doing something. One group had a big feather thing that looked like a big bad mitten birdy and they were in a circle kicking it back and forth like a soccer ball and all laughing. Then I came across a whole field of people doing some kind of exercise, not Ti Chee. So I watched for a while, than there was a gang of people with rackets and a ball they were not batting, but like scooping it back and forth to each other. As I was watching one lady grabbed me and handed me a racket and put me in the game. She showed me how to hold the racket and what to do and there I was playing. Every time I missed some one would run up to me and show me how to do it better. I gave my camera to a gal watching and she took a few pics of me. Look like a big klutz next to them. When I was worn out we said our good bys and bowed and I moved on.

Next I found another big field where everyone was ballroom dancing. I didn't get too close to that one because I saw a few ladies dancing alone with their eye on me. When I say everyone, I am talking hundreds. Moving on, I heard beautiful singing coming from another corner. Again, there must have been hundreds of men and women all singing. But all the men were in one group and the women in another and one guy out in the middle like a conductor leading the song. He would have the men sing and the women than all together and they all knew the words. these were just people walking by. As I stood there people walking by would start to sing and join the group and others in the group would have had enough and walk away. Then when that song was done another guy would come out of the group and lead the next song. I took a lot of pics, but I think I am going to put them all on our web site, Parkinsonsrebels.org So look for them there and anything you may have missed. I wondered around there for a few hours and must take Linda back. I had my ears up all the time and did not hear a word of English.

One thing Lorna warned me about was the Street Vendors. These guys are like a cloud of gnats. They buzz around trying to sell you anything you can think of.. And you can't get rid of them. And if you stop to even acknowledge you see them the rest of them are like blood in the water and look out. So as I was walking along and it was pretty cold, I came across an old lady selling hats and things. I asked or showed her her gloves and she nodded and pulled out a pair. Than the dealing starts. She holds up some bills and I shake my head. She takes away one bill and I say no. I base everything on what an Apple cost. I went to one of the stores and bought an apple and it cost 10 bills. So when I see something I figure how many apples. So I bought the gloves for .8 of an apple. than she showed me an Olympic hat and I bought that. Now the rest of the sharks watching saw a mark. As I was walking out to my bike a swarm of them were trying to block my way with everything but the kitchen sink. One guy was really on me. He had Rolex watches he got down to 3 for 10 dollars. And he would not take no for an answer. When I got to my bike he tried to stop me from getting on, but he was laughing like it was a big game. So I was laughing like he was my best buddy and this was great fun. Than all the others watching started to laugh too. So here is this guy hanging on my arm and I am pushing him away and we are all laughing like a bunch of idiots. Than the guy starts to let the air out of my front tire like it is a big joke, so I laugh like I am having the best time of my life, but I grab him in a head lock and apply a little pressure on the pressure point on the shoulder. When I felt him stiffen I let him go. Now he may know kung fu but I know Kuk Soo Won. So he backs off and we all stand there laughing like we all just escaped from a nut house. I jumped on the bike and as I rode away I turned around and noticed no one was laughing now. So Barry, print this out and read it to Mam and tell her I want my next belt.

Linda has now got up and first thing I am checking her face. Not quite as good as yesterday, but not as bad as the day before. I will check on it as the day goes on.

More to come, John and Linda in China






Temple of Heaven
Beijing China


































Temple of Heaven Gathering
















John Playing Racket Ball

China - Day 3

Another interesting day in China. This morning I thought another trip to Wal-Mart was in order. When I went yesterday, Jessie had to take us so we would not get lost. She was on a tight schedule so she was hurrying us along so we could get back in time for her to go home. So this morning Linda and I made a list of what I should bring back and just when I thought we were thru she said oh yes, I need panty liners. Cabs are all over the place here and everyone uses them and they are cheap. So I called a cab and showed him a picture of Wal-mart the hospital gives us to carry. On this card is directions to the most important places in town. McDonalds, which I haven’t tried yet, KKF, which probity uses the whole chicken, feet and head and all, and a few other places an American tourist would like to visit. Didn’t see the library on the card. Also on the card are instructions on how to get back to the hospital. So off we go. Here in China a taxi ride would qualify for an E ride anywhere else. These guys zip thru the tightest openings without even slowing down. And it does no good to say anything because no one speaks a word of English. More on that later.
We get to Wal-Mart and this place is huge. There is an upper floor and a lower floor and a moving ramp between. You put your cart on the ramp and a big magnet goes clump and holds it in place till you get where you are going. So here I am loading up on peanut butter, and fruit and all the things on the list when I come upon the panty liners. Now how would you ask where these things are when no one speaks a word of English. All you can do is sign language to a bunch of young girls. All I can say was I didn’t get thrown in jail.
The cab ride was fun, the driver got lost and could not find the hospital. All I could do was show him the card with the address on and he would rattle off a hundred questions that I knew about as much as he did with my answers. but it was still very interesting because we were going up and down streets that were hundreds of years old and had no names. When we got to the first hospital and I said no, he had turned off the meter and didn’t turn it back on till we found our hospital. When we finally got where we were going he thru up his hands to let me know he lost money on that trip. but I gave him a big tip and he was happy.
Linda did a lot better today, no hurling. but Amy did say she has an infection because her white cell count is too high. So she had Linda stay in her room today and every one had to come to her. A few docs came in to check her but nothing new to report. Here is Amy and Diana, we really like them. Also a few of the nurses that come in all the time. and when the girls found out I had a computer in the room they asked if they could use it, so here they are.
john and linda

Having Fun With Laptop

Linda and Nurses

Linda and Doctor

Linda & IV

Second Full Day In China

Today has been quite a day. Linda met with Dr Wisdom and Dr Hu. They are the TCM doctors and they did acupuncture and massage for an hour. Than after the massage came occupational therapy, than physical therapy. While Linda was doing that Diana found me a bike to ride around. She had a fit at first when I told her I wanted something to ride, that the cars would kill me. I told her I rode a bike at home all the time and could handle cars. Ha. So we went out to this bike lot and she gave me a set of keys for the locks. This bike hadn’t been ridden for a while and was covered in dust and the tires had little air. But it was mine to ride. I knew that up the corner was a used bike lot where a guy sold a couple hundred bikes so I went to see him. It seems that an American wondering around is a pretty rare sight around here and an American riding a bike is out of this world. Thru a lot of sign language I was able to get across that I needed his pump. OK, he watched thinking I wouldn’t know the first thing about this and was amazed when I hooked the pump up pumped like hell and got the tires hard. Than this bike had been ridden by a short Chinese guy and the seat was on the ground, so I asked to borrow a wrench, he didn’t know what I was talking about so I showed him the nut and tried to bite it with my teeth. Out came a wrench and up went the seat and I was off. A quarter tip and everyone was happy.

Back at the ranch, Linda was back in the room after a morning of fun. I got there just in time to see a gaggle of doctors checking her out. The head of the department and 5 other doctors and a few nurses and a gal with a video camera were poking and prodding and talking 90 miles an hour all at the same time. The head guy told us he studied in San Francisco 5 years ago so that was a good sign. Later. Linda is hooked back up to the IV’s when she started to turn green. Up comes yesterday’s dinner, breakfast and anything else for the past month. You would have thought this was a code blue. In came doctors and nurses and Diana and the cleaning lady to empty the basket Linda used. Only one not there was the dog. Dr. Amy is Linda’s GP on the project and she looked like it was all her fault. They took a blood test and found an infection, so out came the antibiotics. Than Amy and Diana stayed with us the rest of the afternoon till they were off duty. Dr Amy is 30 years old and married to a computer engineer who is working for Bill Gates in Washington State. Diana is 37 and can’t find a boyfriend even though she is a real beauty and sharp as a whip. The girls started to let their hair down and it was so much fun. I showed them all the pics on the computer and they told us about their life. Amy said around Chinese patients she must have a very stern face because that is what they expect from their docs. But she and Diana were laughing and joking and trying to teach us new words and soon Linda was feeling good again. We feel very well taken care of. Where else would the doctor stay with the patient for over 2 hours just because she was nauseated.

There is a school down the street with a thousand kids. I saw something today I have thought of but never had the guts to try. If I did I would be in jail. The kids were walking down the street and a car was behind them trying to get thru. The kids didn’t move fast enough so the guy in the car started to nudge them out of the way with his bumper. Didn’t run them over, just moved thru them. Try that at home.

Here are a few pics from today:

School Children

Not Your Average Wal-Mart



















Street Scene

Pretty Funny

Yesterday a couple of TCM doctors came in and talked with Linda about her condition and put the seeds in her ear to make her sleep. This morning a young Nero who has been checking Linda came in and asked Linda how she slept the night. She said fine and showed him the ear seeds. He asked what they were for and Linda said to help sleep. He looked what the hell, and shook his head. I said you don’t put seeds in? he said if you believe that stuff if may work, I said you must be a western doctor and he laughed and nodded. The TCM doctors in this hospital have their place and the western docs have their side and they seem to butt heads a lot.

First full day in China

When we got in last night it was about 5:00 AM our time and I had been up all that time. So I was pretty tired and wanted to go to sleep. They had other ideas, the doc’s wanted to check Linda right away. They didn’t need me for that so I pulled the couch apart and went to sleep. Now I must have been tired because when I woke up at 12:30 PM our time, it was still dark out. And hurt a bunch. This couch is the kind that you pull the back down and sleep on the two halves. Except the two halves don’t match and I was sleeping in a hole in the middle. Not good. Now if I was home I would look on Craightslist and find another. Or look for the thrown out ones. When I was at #2 firehouse we had the worst couch in the world. My brother Jerry used to come to the firehouse and hang out. Somehow, I think he saw a better one on the tree lawn up the street. Se we loaded the old couch in his van and traded the couch’s. I would like to have that worst couch now because I have 2 months to go with this one. So I get up before daylight and go out to explore. Now the hospital does not like its people leaving on their own and getting into trouble. But this was almost the middle of the night so there was no one to say it’s a bad idea This hospital was built by an Asian American bunch of doctors and I think they didn’t spend too much on the land because it is in old part of the city with alleys all over. But things were jumping even at that hour. So out I went to see what I could see. Little stores about the size of a closet selling food stuff, people cooking out on the sidewalk all kinds of things that may still have been alive. One of these places had some pretty good looking apples and I thought I would buy a bag to take back to our room. I asked the guy how many a dollar would buy and of course he had no idea what I wanted. So I showed him the dollar and held up my fingers and pointed at the apples. I can’t believe he never saw a dollar before, but he acted like he didn’t. He pointed to one apple, I shook my head. He moved behind the counter and kicked a bundle of rags on the floor and out popped his wife. He showed her the dollar and she shook her head. By this time I took the dollar back and said I would be back. He than pulled a bunch of bills out that I had no idea if it was monopoly money or what. I said I would be back. As it got lighter out I went back for my camera. Lots of pics later I came back for food. Linda had ordered breakfast and it was there. But what it was who knows. And it tasted bad and they charged her 5 bucks for it. Most didn’t get eaten. Today Linda was hooked up to IV’s all day. As soon as one would run out they would start another. As I write this she is still hooked up to the last one for the day. And every kind of doctor was in to see her. I don’t know when they are going to drill her head and insert the cells. This morning a couple from Greece checked in. The husband has PK that is not treatable with sinemet. He went to doctors all over Europe and they had nothing to offer. So they are here as a court of last resort. I met the wife but not the husband yet. Carol, his wife, and I were taken to Wal Mart to shop. That’s another story, but I am running out of steam. Barry, I told you Katie was tough, I saw it at Kuk Soo Wan. Too bad about the wet seat. Janie, our son Scott lives in New Zealand, say hi. And really cool about the A club. that should be fun. More to come, exchanging money at the bank, taxi rides, and best of all, I asked Diana where I can get a bicycle and she came up with one. More to follow.
john and linda

Linda's Blood Work

January 8th, 2008
Hi Lorna, well its ten minutes to 3 and I am awake. Linda’s doc said the same thing about the trip, that’s why they are going to do the same tests in couple of days. When the docs here ask questions its almost like an invasion of privacy, they keep asking the same question different ways till they get the answer they are looking for. Yesterday two doctors of traditional Chinese Medicine came to the room and Linda sees them this morning at 8:30. They seem to butt heads with the medical docs here but have as much say. Due to the time change Linda is not sleeping, or me, at the right times. So the med guys were going to give her a light med to sleep. The TCM docs said no, they put some studs in Linda’s ear and told her when it was time to sleep to press on them. Linda just said they were seeds of some sort, and damm if it didn’t work. When she got up to go to the bathroom she got back in bed and squeezed the thing a nd back to sleep. She wants to know what they were and how they ever found about them in the first place. We met Kotan last night for the first time. She is a Jew and said she got this job by chance. Right now because of the holidays there are only us and another couple from Greece here. She says by next week it will be full again. It will be by the end of the week before Linda gets any kind of stem cell treatment. Kotan says the doctors who do that are very conservative and just don’t jump into it. That is why all the tests and IV’s this week. She is up on every thing. She saw that article I sent you and said nowhere in that article it says it don’t work. It tells about how hard it is to get the money, and different things, but nothing about the treatment itself. She said she would welcome more investigation from the west. Than we talked about different patients I had contacted and how they were doing. We are in the South wing, the north wing is full of Chinese patients. And right now they are full. There is a kitchen where the Chinese patients cook their own food and Kotan says if we want, go there and cook ourselves. When I went to Wal Mart yesterday I was looking for some of the frozen stir frys, but Jessie was in a hurry and was worried because Carol would go in one direction and I in the other and she was reasonable for us and so on. So she showed me a counter of chicken heads and snakes and worms and big cockroach’s and said get these. Not quite what I had in mind. I have to go back on my own. I should see my new bicycle today and than can get around. Linda just poked her ear and went back to sleep, more to come Barry told me how Katie got mad at the dogs and gave them hell for not listening. I see the same thing at Kuk Soo Won. Don’t get on her bad side. I had to turn off my cell phone, it works over here and I was getting all kind of calls from people that didn’t know I was gone and it’s 2.29 a minute.
Dad

First Post

Here we are in China. When a guy is doing nothing because he has nothing to do, time drags on forever. But if a guy has tons of jobs lined up and he is doing nothing, well that’s pretty good. The 12 hour flight was the longest 12 hours I have ever spent. If you think you want to live forever just take a few long flights. There were a few movies but they were all in Chinese with Chinese sub titles And they were long. We were met at the airport by Diana. not her real name but everyone here takes western names so we know who they are. There real names are Xieeqs. They know we would have a hard time with that. Anyway, here was Diana and a guy driver to take us to the hospital. The guy spoke no English but Diana made up for that. The poor guy could do nothing right and boy did she let him know. Non stop with the what the hell are you doing but in a 5000 year old language at high volume. Being a guy I did not need an interrupter to know what she was saying. The ride from the airport to the hospital went very well. We were not killed en route. At first I was a little concerned when we made a U turn on a curve without even checking what the other guys coming thought of the maneuver. But soon I had it all figured out. Every one expects you to do something like that. If I did that on Auburn Blvd. I would g et hit by 10 cars. But here everyone does it so that is the norm. Now if I was driving and tried to change lanes by using the turn signal they would think it was just a broken turn signal and keep going. But if you just jump into the other lane every one serves over and you are in. By the way Renee, Diana says you are her best friend and hello. We got to the hospital at 5:00 AM our time, but they were just getting into their prime. In comes a doc and starts checking out Linda. I was just a little tired so I laid down on the couch, more on that later and fell asleep. I have a lot more to write, but I have to make sure I am not just spinning my wheels, so I will send this and see if you got it and if I can get incoming.
john and linda in China