day one of the three day procedure

I'm back at the Green Park hospital for a bit so I could pick up some necessities that I forgot to bring (namely, toothbrush and toothpaste) and to report that everything is going quite well for Ryan in day one of the three day procedure.

She's not feeling any pain at all, and no headache, which is great. In this procedure, Dr. Ashish (the anesthesiologist) put a catheter in her cerebral spinal fluid (just outside her spinal cord) at L4, and then twice a day they inject a stem cell/saline mixture into this catheter.

The catheter then runs from her lower back up her spine (safely secured with tape, see photo) to a little clip thing that is taped to Ryan's shoulder. It's very interesting. Her first injection into this site occurred this morning when Dr. Ashish gave her the catheter and she was crouched on her side in the fetal position. Tonight, he just came into our room at the other hospital and injected the stem cells into the clip on her shoulder while she was lying on her back.

The worst part about this is that she has to lay flat and inverted for a few hours after each injection, I'm assuming to assure that the stem cells have lots of space to do their thing. Lying inverted for that long means that much of the blood rushes to her head, so they make her get up very carefully after each "rest" - lying on her side for a while, then sitting up, and finally getting into her chair.

Today she had to lay flat for something like five hours and they were also giving her an IV with an antibiotic, and we all thought she wasn't going to make it not being able to pee for so long, but she did. And once she got up, oh did she pee!

I have to either come back to the Green Park hospital or find a coffee shop with wireless every day for work, so I'll be sure to post another update with more photos tomorrow.

PS - all of those weird looking things on Ryan's back are just lines from her hospital gown - this was taken about a minute after she got up from lying on her back for five hours. It looks much less scary in person, I promise!