Thursday night out with Dr. Ugalde was great! He is such a caring and fun guy! We went to a nice restaurant called The Market. We were also joined by one of Dr. Ugalde’s colleagues from the lab. The conversation was great. It was very interesting to talk to them about the all they are doing with the stem cells. They’re so intelligent and excited about all their work. We get to go on a tour of the lab next week. It will be very interesting.
After dinner they took us on a tour of Casco Viejo. This is an older part of the city that is being renovated. There are lots of little clubs with live music. It’s also full of history. Mary Laura (this is how you would say her name in English), was extremely knowledgeable about the history of Panama. She took lots of time with us showing us many different parts of Panama’s history. She was excited when talking about how you can discover the magic in a culture by examining their history. It was interesting. Casco Viejo was actually the 2nd main city that was built. It’s over 100 years old. The first city they built was burned down by pirates and this one was built among the rocks so the pirate ships couldn’t get too close to attack.
Friday was full with therapy in the morning and my second injection in the afternoon. The injection went well. Again, the staff at the Stem Cell Institute is awesome. After my injection I laid flat in bed for the rest of the night to allow the stem cells to start to travel up to my injury spot as well as to try and avoid a spinal headache. We watched movies and hung out and I only had a slight headache when I woke up in the morning.
Now for the fun! Saturday we are planning on going out to see the Panama Canal. We will be going to see the locks and hopefully catch a ship going through. We also plan on taking a boat tour on the canal to a place called Monkey Island.
