Sorry it has been a few days since the last post, but there hasn’t been much new to report. Tuesday night we went out to dinner with Dr. Ugalde and Natalia, who also works at the lab. We went to a great restaurant that was chosen by Natalia. It was called Jaleo. It had a nice atmosphere, and the food was great.

Wednesday was a therapy and injection day. Between therapy and the injection we met up with Shaun Doss and his Dad Robert. Trish knows Shaun from back home at SOS therapy. He’s a 7 year old with a spinal cord injury. We were excited to meet up with them and take a stroll down the boardwalk. However, it was really hot out and were all happy to finally get into the mall and grab a bite to eat. Wednesday was Trish’s first injection of her own bone marrow stem cells. Everything went smoothly with the injection and the rest of the evening was spent relaxing.

Thursday was therapy and then an IV. At therapy we met another spinal cord injury patient, Bruce, from Iowa. After meeting at therapy we made plans to go out for dinner that night with him and his friend Melissa.

After Trish’s IV we got to go to the lab for a tour. This was really interesting. The lab is located next to the canal on the old US military base. There are a lot of businesses located in this area and several US Universities that have small campuses here. We thought that was interesting. The lab Director, who we met last week, gave a nice presentation of their processes and procedures on how they prepare the cells. It’s a huge process. We loved learning more about it. We also met Pablo, who is the CEO of the clinic. He too was very personable and took time with us to answer any questions we had. While we were there we also saw Natalia again and she was busy working on the cells. We missed Dr. Ugalde as he left the day prior to fly to Minnesota to run a marathon – Good luck Federico! It’s clear from talking to everyone at the lab
(and the clinic in general), they are all very excited about the work they are doing and love what they do. They are so hopeful of even more possibilities for the future. We had hoped to see
Dr. Riordan again, but he was out of the country and was returning later tonight.

After the lab tour we went out to dinner with Bruce and Melissa to another great restaurant it was called Don Patacon. We tried ceviche, an appetizer, which is a dish they are known for here. It’s raw fish marinated in citrus juices (lime and lemon) and then it also had mangos, coconut milk, and other spices. It was great! For dinner we both ordered another fish dish, red snapper this time, which was delicious. We have really loved the food down here. It’s really good and affordable. It was great to have dinner with Bruce and Melissa. They were both really nice and we hope to keep in touch with them after we leave here.

Here are some real cool pictures of mesenchmal stem cells that they shared with us at the lab. Dye has been added to enhance the pictures.

This picture is of the mesenchymal stem cells in their natural form. As you can see they are relatively flat.

As the cells get ready to split they start to get into a ball shape.

Here is a really cool picture of a cell splitting!

Here are a few pictures of some of the rooms in the lab.

Here is Trish and Natalia. We met Natalia earlier in the week and were very impressed with her knowledge and passion for the work they are doing in the lab!

We are not sure why, but there have been fireworks right outside the condo over the bay twice since we have been here, the last one was Thursday night. Check out the pictures!

Friday is our last day in Panama! Trish has therapy and her last injection (Bone marrow again). We will be busy packing and getting ready to leave in the morning. Our flight is at 7:00 in the morning which means we need to leave our condo at 4:30, which means we need to get up around 2:30, which is 12:30 am back home! Saturday is going to be another long travel day, but boy are we excited to get home!!! It’s been nice talking with the boys each morning on Skype but we miss them like crazy!