StemCellsChina.com
Fill out my online form.
Weitere Neuigkeiten
| Battle Against All Odds |
 |
 |
| Research | |||
| Mittwoch, 13. Dezember 2006 um 08:00 Uhr | |||
|
There are no translations available. Source: Toronto Sun By Thane Burnett China quest: Sisters' journey of hope SHENZHEN, China -- Crouched like still tigers on the busy sidewalk, fortune tellers gathered yesterday to prey outside the large downtown hospital complex. It seemed a likely spot to pounce on those who want to learn their fate -- face their darkest fears or greatest triumphs -- now rather than later. But as the Deering sisters, 21-year-old Shannon and 18-year-old Erica --both paralysed in a 2004 car crash -- were wheeled past them, the third eye of each Chinese mystic didn't bother to blink toward the damaged but perfectly gutsy siblings. The street wizards, heads bowed down in a thick fog of car exhaust and disinterest in our passing group, must have known an earthly truth. That these girls from Port Perry, Ont. -- as well as a growing number of ailing and frustrated Westerners -- are coming to this 'City of Joy' because they will not accept what an unhappy fate has already prescribed. After four airports, 11 pieces of lost luggage and marathon flight times, crossing the international dateline meant Erica, Shannon, their dad Tony, mom Deborah, personal aides Fay Fraser and Laurie Love, and finally, myself, were en route from Sunday morning in Toronto to 10:47 p.m. Monday night in Shenzhen. Though, to be fair, the journey of each of the patients on Shenzhen Beike Biotechnologies' Floor 14 -- which houses those taking part in experimental umbilical cord stem cell treatments -- is measured long before any seat or Chinese operating room is assigned to them. To understand why a previously average family would cross to the other side of the world, pay a small fortune (most often, four-to-six treatments over a month costs each patient around $20,000) and ignore the rattle and hum of an unimpressed Canadian medical community, spend that journey in Erica and Shannon's assigned seats. They travelled here, locked in place, on little sleep and a lot of tears. Flying, for anyone, is arduous. Now, stay bound for the whole thing -- only after those you love have had to pick you up like a sack of cargo mail to carry you to your spot. On Shannon's left arm is a tattoo of an ode to good friends -- two fellow baseball players from the days before she had to swallow a small pharmacy of pills each day. That ink on her slight bicep includes the trio's team numbers. Both of those other friends went off to universities on ball scholarships after the crash. Shannon is here, hand-in-weak-hand with her little sister, as they look for small medical mercies not yet offered in their home country. They seem brave for one another's sake. People aren't always on the side of the underdog. I have watched as strangers stop and gawk at Erica and Shannon. The duo seem to have long ago lost their ability to really notice or care much about it. During one connection, a frustrated flight attendant had to use the doors of the gangway as a defence, because a woman refused to wait while Erica and Shannon were lugged to their bulkhead seats. The dozens of little vignettes chipped away at them during their trip. Arriving here in this one-time fishing village turned thriving Communist boomtown, the tested pair were clinging to their last threads of emotion and hope. But after just a few hours here, they are once again believing -- as they now approach their first stem cell procedures on Friday -- they may still have some say over fate. Yesterday, Chinese doctors went over every square inch of the girls, to test the extent of their paralysis. At times, before the sisters were placed on IVs dripping with herb medicine to help with stem cell growth, the number of nurses and doctors filling each of the girls' rooms hovered close to 10. Dressed in crisp, formal medical uniforms which look as if they were designed for a 1970s Marcus Welby, M.D. episode, the large staff work in the expanse of a modern and clean clinic. On the doors for each patient is their name and what country they had to leave to try this therapy. "Can you feel this (pin) prick," asked Dr. Wu Fang, as she tracked a wooden sliver across Erica's rail-thin legs -- deciding where nerves thrive and where they died. The madness of their broken backs means both girls can feel 100% in one spot and nothing at all a few inches away. No doctor here will predict what difference the insertion of millions of stem cells into each of the girls' spinal columns will do to their crippled backs --though no one is suggesting a wholesale miracle. But Shenzhen Beike officials claim, of the 160 patients they've treated since last year, 98% have reported at least some improvement in movement or pain management. Their testimonials fill the web as the world's oddest travel reviews. "We can only wait and see with these two young girls," said Dr. Yang Wang Zhang, who is in charge of the Shenzhen Beike stem cell teams. "I think they will at least have a little improvement." Both girls hope for more control over their hands. Their weak fingers tried to hold chopsticks in a private room of a city restaurant at the girls' first meal since they arrived. But they were also hungry to hear company chairman Dr. Sean Hu outline what he sees as his country's pioneering work in real-world stem cell clinical applications. Stem cell therapy on humans in this part of the world -- the company boasts it uses safe and multi-tested umbilical cord cells donated by Chinese moms -- goes back to 2001. "We have proven that this is a safe method," he told his patients -- as a small army of waitresses kept bringing more dim sum to the table. "Would you perform this type of procedure on a member of your family?" I asked. "I already have. My grandmother -- who's 98 years old," Hu said. "She got her appetite back," he noted. Patients are lining up into next May to get a vacancy on Floor 14. They all want a room with their own view -- at least a fighting chance at challenging an unfair or accidental destiny. Which is why Shenzhen Beike plans to open other clinics in Budapest, Costa Rica and Thailand. Perhaps, noted dad Tony, Costa Rica will be open by the time Shannon and Erica are ready to make a follow-up trip to retest fate.
|
|||
| Zuletzt aktualisiert am Sonntag, 17. Dezember 2006 um 05:13 Uhr |