Infusion day and Day 3

J.D. wrote the longest post ever last night and then somehow it was deleted before he had a chance to publish it! We were both too exhausted to redo it last night so let's try again today. Yesterday was the big day. We got to the hospital around 8:15. Again, Weston immediately started acting nervous. We met with the best anesthesiologist I've ever encountered. He was a young guy from England and a soccer fan so he and J.D. had a lot to talk about. He gave Weston some medicine to make him loopy, but he was still aware enough to know that he didn't want anyone touching him! This Dr. gave him the quickest IV he's ever had which made me love him even more. Weston was of course crying through the process and the instant he received the sedative through the IV he zonked right out. It was actually pretty funny. Flopped his head right down mid-whaaaaaaaaa! The MRI took about 45 mins. JD and I went to Einsteins bagels for breakfast and coffee like we did in the old days in Dallas. After breakfast, JD and I waited in the recovery room for Weston. When they brought him up, he was still asleep and remained that way for another hour or so. When he woke up, he had a bagel and a visit from a music therapist. This guy just had a guitar and sang a bunch of kids songs and Coldplay to put Weston at ease. He said he would be there for the actual infusion as well because we needed Weston to stay as still as possible. I was starting to get nervous at this point. Not because I was worried, but because the moment we had all been waiting for was about to happen. They brought up the bag and it had a clear liquid with a pinkish hint to it. I immediately thought, "Oh great, it's not the cord blood." I asked why it didn't look like blood and they said they had to wash the blood out and that it would only be the stem cells. Dr. Sun was in the room now and started hooking Weston up which was painless but he wasn't happy about it at all. The music therapist started singing songs about animals that growled because he had figured out Weston loves to growl and roar. It pretty much didn't work at all. Hahahaha, so JD and I just held him and told him he was ok and he kind of went in and out of panic mode. The infusion itself didn't even take 10 mins. There was a camera crew there that filmed the infusion and interviewed JD and I afterwards. I hope I never see that interview. I felt like I couldn't get my thoughts together and sounded stupid. Oh well. After the interviews, Weston had to stay in the hospital for 2 hours to be monitored in case of an allergic reaction. He took a good nap, and all was fine. We went out to lunch afterwards and he was happy as a clam for the rest of the day. This morning we met with Anne before Weston's occupational therapy appointment. She made a point to tell me that if he received the stem cells yesterday, we would not see a miraculous improvement in the next few days. She said it would take at least 3-6 months. Good to know, because I had pretty much planned on watching him like a hawk for the next few days. I asked her about the stories I had seen online and on tv about the kids who practically changed overnight. I asked if their parents were lying. She said she wouldn't call them liars and that she can understand how badly they want to see their children improve, but that whatever they saw over the course of a few days was not stem cell related. I'm just glad I know that now so that we can relax a little and not drive ourselves crazy over the next week. Anyway, today was a very short day. Weston just had an occupational therapist evaulate him. She just gave him a bunch of different toys and observed the use of his left hand. Pretty quick and easy. She did say that he did better than expected and recommended a few toys for us to get. After that, we went back to the botanical gardens and played the rest of the morning. It has been a good day so far.