The Wound

The snow is falling, yet again. Daytime television is for the birds. Sponge baths are losing their luster. I am beginning my second week in the hospital.

It isn't so bad. I feel as though I am getting the most optimal care at all ends. After 2 surgeries, my infection is close to defeated; leaving a deep hole in its place. Surgeons had to physically remove the infection, taking out dead tissue and leaving a fairly substantial wound in its place.

The battle with the wound is where I sit now. It is now my body's job to repair the disaster that the infection has created. I am really hoping that my body is up to the challenge, because there is a lot of healing required.

I do what I can to aid in the process: intaking loads of protein and pretending that I like meat, staying off of the wound to give it the best environment to heal, and resting my body and attempting the same with my brain.

It is scary to be set back by such a wound... truthfully my life has stopped and will be on hiatus until the wound is gone. This little thing is full of power and control. My every move will be devoted and dedicated to the little wound until it ceases to be a part of me.

Perhaps I will be able to take some time of good reflection and care for myself during this wound vacation. I am going to, absolutely, try to make the most of my life on hold.

A Setback In the Backside

In my laundry list of things that I wanted and anticipated through my stem cell journeys, there was something extremely important that I have forgotten about... my butt!

Now please allow me to elaborate:
Any person that spends their days in a wheelchair has to be constantly shifting their weight around in sort of an obsessive dance with time. This is to limit the amount of pressure that an area endures over the course of each day. Worse case scenario, the tissue underneath the skin under pressure will begin to break down, causing what is known as a bedsore, skin sore, pressure sore, skin ulcer, decubitis ulcer, and a regular ol' pain in the butt.

Because this is of constant concern for me, it is surprising that this is the first time that I have considered adding it to my Stem Cell To-Do List. A few years back, I had one of those pains-in-the-butts to the point where I had to withdraw from all of my college courses, lay with strict orders of flat bed rest for 5 weeks, endure plastic surgery to conceal the wound, and ultimately spend 3 months in the hospital. I swore that I would never let it happen again.

And, somehow, I find myself here in room 455, the proud new owner of IV antibiotics and an unlimited number of rides on my air-pumped hospital bed. I know, I know... I promised. I am not quite sure what happened really.

The long and short of it is that it began last Monday as a terrible case of the "flu". Isn't it always the poor, defenseless influenza virus that gets the blame? By Tuesday afternoon, with a heart pulsing so obviously trying to tell me something and a fever that actually required Tylenol, I knew that something was not quite right. However, it wasn't until Wednesday that I actually had the self-diagnosis, followed closely by the medical thing, of Cellulitis-- a general word for an infection in tissue under the skin. By Thursday, I was anxiously waiting for some relief, but when I wasn't satisfied, I headed back for another evaluation. It wasn't until Friday that I actually took a day off from teaching (which I realize is probably why it got so bad in the first place). I rested all day long and, as sands in an hour glass, watched my body continue to swell. Saturday brought about a trip to Urgent Care, followed closely by a trip to the hospital, which is where I currently reside.

The prognosis is good and I am finally catching up with rest and catching up with myself.

As for those little savior stem cells, I know realize how important it would be to either: A) have feeling in my bootie simply to let me know that "ouch!" there's something wrong, or B) put a little junk in my trunk-- otherwise known as increased motor function to help build up overall muscle mass.

That will be my new goal, for sure.

From A Whisper To A Sound

In the light of our new administration a ray of hope for those with incurable and fatal conditions is now felt as warmth as the ban on embryonic stem cell research is lifted here in the US.

Since my first trip to India, there have been many changes in my life-- both physically and emotionally (which I have solicited online via the wonderful world of Blogger). However, there is a another change that I rarely put the effort into telling about: the social and political change that has gone on inside of me. Truthfully, I was never aware of its existence beforehand, but now it appears to twist and turn and rotate in me much like that of a Rubik's cube desperately trying to find each of its sides of monochromatic victory.

For those who know me well, my political stance generally leans nowhere-- tending to stay in that unspoken gray area. I have never been known to be very opinionated; truth-be-told I have been marked by my friends as the last person on Earth to ever sport a bumper sticker, simply for the fact that there would be nothing I'd sway to so easily. Now don't mistake this for being dispassionate-- that is far from true. It is simply a matter of so readily being able to see both the black and the white of a situation; hence leaving an seemingly dull gray color behind. But for any of you that recognize color for what it truly is-- a conglomerate of the spectrum created with perfect quantities of ever-so-specialized proportions-- that my, so-called, gray area was, in fact, not as murky as it appears. This gray was the presence of all the specified fractions of the rainbow, simply all at once. I typically took much pride in being able to see many sides to one issue, much like that Rubik's cube being comprised of many other cubes of color working harmoniously in order to make that final product even more great.

It wasn't until my decision to pursue one of the most controversial of all topics that is argued today, that I became much more rigid in my thinking-- making it apparent that a definite pull to one side was to be announced.

This pull was created as a means to validate the decision to go abroad to encounter something that most were, even so much as, willing to talk about. When I first made my mind up to travel to India for embryonic stem cell treatment, I found myself almost whispering the word, "embryonic." It was created in the likeness of profanity, or at least (socially) that is what I had thought. The word rarely came out of my mouth, instead it was replaced with words like, "experimental" and finally to, "groundbreaking" when I became more excited to make the whole thing a reality.

But something has shifted now.

Suddenly, it is okay to use the term "embryonic." You hear it on the news, see it on commercials, and even find it in line at the grocery stores. This shift, perhaps, has come about thanks to one increasingly powerful individual-- the individual that we are all looking to "be the change that we want to see in the world", one Mr. President Obama.

His promise to revert Bush's veto of using federal monies for embryonic stem cell research has, almost overnight, made it okay for me to longer whisper my adventures made in India. I no longer feel perverse and strange-- this shift has even left me with a sense of pride and empowerment of myself. I want to show the world the true benefits of all that has transformed for me. I want to show off my little baby stem cells and dress them up in a bow tie and take them out for dinner to thank them for all they've done for me. I want to prove to the world that this is the right direction for medicine in our country to travel, no matter the gigantic leap that will be necessary to make.

In order for embryonic stem cell therapies to become available, readily, in the US I believe that a lot of collaboration will need to take place and a lot of control will need to be relinquished. Collaboration on the part of those who have been doing the research for over two decades. There have been many private agencies exploring the power of stem cells for years, and I am confident that the solution is found in letting go of the prestige of being a new marked name in history and being willing to recognize that the answer may be found outside of themselves. I believe (when I wear my little biologist hat) in the work of Dr. Shroff and I can only hope that someone here in the States will believe the same enough to want to explore/implore her procedures here. I also feel that in order for embryonic stem cell therapies to become a part of medicine here, there will need to be a huge shift in the power and control of our medical companies. There is much power and money held in pharmaceuticals and that hierarchy of healing will, no doubt, be challenged by stem cells. Implementing stem cell therapies would make the use of most medicines and medical treatments rendered as useless-- surely creating a paradigm change in our entire medical system here. Someone has to be willing to think of the lives of those in this country rather than only the financial and governmental gain of structure when laying out bricks of civilization.

But can that happen in my lifetime? Will the power of change be pursued in a manner that can transform an entire country or will we continue to be stuck in old thoughts and dollar signs?

Only time will tell, I suppose.

That's What Victor Hugo Said

Almost a week after the talent show fund-raiser, I sit here STILL in awe over the brilliant kids that were kind enough to share with me and my loved ones their most proud gifts. It was amazing to be able to see all of these kids, these students, in a different light... the spotlight. I usually spend my days lecturing them, high-5ing them, coaching them, and greeting them in the halls. But this night was different. These kids were no longer kids, and they didn't even begin to resemble students. They were performers with the utmost confidence and care, swooning the crowd and creating smiles all-around.
To top it all off, we raised over $3000 for my future stem cell endeavors! It is such a humbling feeling of warmth to be able to reflect on all of the people in my life that love and support everything that I do. There are so many emotions that don't have names, at least ones that I know... which is terrible, because writing is the only way that I can keep connected with the world, and the world has NO idea how loved I truly feel.

There is much gratitude sent through rays of sunshine to everyone who helped to create the event, those who performed with their hearts, everyone who attended in support, and everyone else that couldn't make it but sent their love anyways.

“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved -- loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.”