Trish's First Injection

Well, Tuesday was Trish’s first injection! It was scheduled at 2:30 so we just hung around the hotel in the morning before heading over to the hospital. We had lunch at a really good Chinese restaurant right next door! We were worried that we wouldn’t be able to read the menu, but were pleasantly surprised that many restaurants have English on their menus.

The hospital where all of the procedures are done is very nice and looks just like any of our hospitals back in the states. Most of the people speak English so communication really hasn’t been an issue. We met Dr. Afonso who is the anesthesiologist that does the actual injections. He was very nice and took his time talking to us. He is also a pain management specialist so we talked to him quite a bit about Trish’s nerve pain. Unfortunately he really didn’t have any new suggestions for us. The injection went very well and Trish didn’t feel a thing. The actual procedure took less than 10 minutes. We left the hospital shortly after the injection and headed back to the hotel for Trish’s mandatory 4 to 5 hours of laying flat on her back. This is required for 2 reasons, first to help prevent a spinal headache and second to help allow the stem cells to migrate up the spinal column. The injection takes place in the spinal fluid at the base of the spine and the stem cells will migrate to where she has inflammation.

About 3 hours into her rest, Trish started getting a headache. It got worse at night and was still bad this morning. We called the clinic and the head Dr. actually came right over to our hotel to check on Trish! It was amazing. We usually wait longer than this in our normal Dr.’s waiting rooms! Dr. Lara was not too concerned and actually administered 2 shots to help with the headache and ordered Trish to relax for another 4 hours. It has been really hard for Trish to stay in bed for nearly 24 hours! She is so bored! Thank goodness we have HBO and it’s in English. So we will hang low today and make up the physical therapy session later in the week. Injection number 2 is tomorrow so be praying for a better recovery!