Monday, February 7

The day that everything starts.  We had breakfast, well some of us.  Blye couldn't have anything because he had to be put under anesthesia, so we ate in shifts.  We waited for the X-Cell Center ride about 1:30 and was off to the clinic.  We arrived and awaited our turn.  They took a picture of Blye and made a card that has all of his information pertinent to the clinic on it.  What is pertinent to us is the number on the back in case of any emergency.  That made me feel better in a way that we had an emergency contact here if we needed one.  So we sat for a while and waited to talk to Dr. Elsisi, who is the anesthesiologist and Dr. Habaland, who is the Neurologist.  I didn't much care for Dr. Elsisi his bedside manner left things to be desired and he didn't really answer any of the questions that I had.  So when we left his office, I and everyone else were feeling a little uneasy about having things clarified.  Dr. Habaland was the saving grace in all this.  We sat down with him and he made sure that we were aware of everything.  It is not very often that you find a doctor that will take the time to talk you through all of the steps and make sure that you are fully aware.  He made up for Dr. Elsisi.  So now that everyone is in the know.  Blye is having a change in plans.  We are still doing the stem cell therapy, but he is having an IV feed.  What happens is they give him Mannitol, that opens up the blood brain barrier to allow the stem cells to travel into the brain and go to the lesions that Blye has in his brain.  The process takes just about as long, but will not be near as invasive.  We are praying that with this being less invasive that we will still have low side effects with things.  The Mannitol can have some ugly things happen, but we will pray and let God take this.  He has gotten us this far, right?  I have been reminded quite a bit that there is no sense in worrying because God has seen us through all of this. 
So after we met with Dr. Habaland we waited for Ralf who is our AWESOME driver, to take us back to the hotel.  We decided that after the stressful day, that really wasn't as stressful as we anticipated, we decided to find a place to sit down and eat at.  We found this BEAUTIFUL Italian place called Casa Mattoni's.  After we walked in we realized that we weren't going to get any more authentic than here.  We had a small menu to order from and it was written on an ellaborate board on the wall.  Grandma had mixed fish, Grandpa had seafood with pasta, Gary and Blye shared a beef with pasta dish, and I had truffles with a white wine sauce with pasta.  I was SO excited for all of our dishes to come, but mostly mine.  We enjoyed a glass of chardonnay and had our wonderful dishes and then decided that we needed to celebrate our day with dessert.  How much more Italian can you get, when you order Triamisu, Creme Brulee, and Moca Chocolatitusch (Chocolate Lava Cake). It was wonderful for supper and it was even more wonderful to have such a great day.  Knowing that we were proceeding with the proceedure was such a huge relief for all of us.