'Answer's Out There'

StemCellsChina.com

Donnerstag, 21. Dezember 2006 um 23:12 Uhr

There are no translations available.

Source: Toronto Sun

By Thane Burnett

SHENZHEN, China -- From here, in the usually quiet stem cell ward of The 6th People's Hospital of Shenzhen, the story of the Deering sisters could be mistaken for a medical journey of just two young Canadians.

But that's not where it ends.

When Shannon and Erica Deering return to Canada in January -- after their fifth injection of umbilical cord stem cells -- they are likely to be followed by other broken and ailing Canadians.

Some have already booked passage to places like China.

Others, including Sean Corner, are waiting to be shown the signs that this is more than hype -- that it's the hope they need.

Sean, a 21-year-old Hamilton athlete, was paralyzed from his waist down in early September, after a player the size of a small mountain fell awkwardly on him during a rugby match.

As fellow players from around the world were recently raising tens of thousands of dollars for Sean, his dad Tom quietly wrote out his own cheque for $250 and sent it off to the Deering sisters.

'THERE'S HOPE'

He's one of countless Canadians who have made it possible for the sisters to make this trip.

Now, he and his son are keeping, from a distance, track of all that happens to the girls on this 14th floor.

"I think there's hope there," Tom says. "I think an answer is out there for us."

Their search started right after the accident.

"I knew I was in trouble -- I felt my body crush under his weight," Sean -- 5-foot-9 and 175 lbs. -- recalls of being hit by the 300-lb. bruiser.

Sean -- keeping his head straight amid a nightmare -- actually called his dad as an ambulance crew was tending to him.

Inside a trauma unit at Hamilton General Hospital, Tom asked a doctor if his son would walk again. They were told it would take a miracle.

The young man had a singularly heart-wrenching reaction to the news.

"He had one tear rolling down his cheek," Tom recalls. "The next thing, he grabbed my hand and said, 'Dad, we're going to be OK.'"

Then he told his father, an independent claims adjuster counting the years until he could stop working: "I'm sorry I ruined your retirement."

The family regrouped. Held tight. And began again. "What started at that moment was hope," Tom says.

Sean has been in contact with Cheryl Paget, who last month returned from this same stem cell clinic that the Deerings are now in.

"We're exploring it all," Sean says. "I'm young. Even if it takes me to 40 to walk again. But what I don't want to do is waste my life waiting for a cure."

HEARING IMPAIRED

As he decides whether China might hold possibilities, Varinia Vartolas has already made up her mind.

At the end of February, the North York mom will fly to China with her 6-year-old son -- her youngest of two children -- who has Dystonic Quadriplegia Cerebral Palsy and is hearing impaired.

She sometimes looks at young Corvin Cioata, and watches as he seems confused that his body is not fully his own to command.

"Sometimes he feels the frustration of not being able to do what his mind tells him to do," Varinia says.

"I see him looking at his arms and it is quite a struggle to make his body listen to his mind."

The family has tried a number of alternative treatments, including hyperbaric treatment and homeopathic medicine from India.

"After almost a year of Internet searches and discussions with parents that pursued the treatment, I made my mind this last spring to try it for him," she says of stem cell treatments here.

Rather than this city, the mother and child will be flying to a Beike pediatric facility in Hangzhou, China. But the controversial treatment is largely the same as the Deerings are getting now.

'NOT AVAILABLE'

To pay the cost of the trip, friends have rallied to young Corvin's aid. And Varinia and her husband have also increased their mortgage.

"Traveling to China is not too convenient as it is far but because this treatment is not available in Canada we are forced to go where it is available," she says.

"Families like my own and other people that are suffering cannot wait 50 years or so until this treatment will be made available here in Canada."

She has hope Canada will speed its progress -- especially with its much heralded, new stem cell research facility -- but Varinia believes that's the future. Her family is desperate for advances now.

So as the Deering sisters begin their second stem cell session, there are other Canadians a half a world away, watching -- even planning -- to do the same.

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