Thursday, October 05, 2006
Hi Everyone! The 13.5 hour flight to Hong Kong from San Francisco was pretty horrible. It's so hard to fly for that period of time with a healthy child, needless to say a "special needs" child. Lukas pretty much cried the whole time (unless he's sleeping). Everyone around us was irritated and some even complained to me. Of course, I had to explain to them that Lukas is not a typical child and I've tried everything to console him to no avail. Towards landing, he was crying so much and I had to put him in the carseat. I was on the verge to breaking down into tears, but I stopped it. I was just so sad for Lukas to have to go through this. I'm not even going to think about how to handle taking Lukas back to the States for a 15 hour flight. All in all, I hope something positive will come out of this for Lukas.
Then, we arrived safely. The only good thing about that flight was how smooth the pilot did the take off and landing - no ear pressure at all! The taxi driver drove us from Hong Kong into China. That again was another nightmare. Apparently the driver had some immigration problem and so he was detained. While the Chinese officials interrogated him, we waited for 2 hours in the van breathing in all that fume. They refused to let us leave the van and go into the lobby area. Finally, the driver called his partner to come and finish the drive for us into China. As you know, once the van is "flagged," it's bad news from there. So we went through so many other security clearance check points (while other cars passed us by quickly) and had to open the boxes, etc. Lukas wasn't feeling so well this whole time. He was sneezing alot with a runny nose; he was so flushed. He didn't sleep or ate well during the flight, so he was really exhausted and sick. I started re-thinking whether this decision we made was a good one or not. I'll keep you posted I guess.
Finally, after 4 hours (it only takes about 1 hour to get into China from Hong Kong), we finally arrived at the hospital. What an ordeal! Well, the hospital is nice, clean, and spacious. We decided to save money by staying at the hospital, which I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not. There's alot of noises around. At worst, we'll probably move to a hotel and take Lukas in every day for treatments and therapies.
I'm so fortunate that my sister-in-law, Tylie, introduced me to her friend who lives in Beijing. In turn, this friend introduced me to his friend in Shenzhen. So now I have an awesome friend named Maggie in Shenzhen. You can't imagine how wonderful this is!!! I guess all this bad luck was cancelled out by us meeting Maggie. We instantly connected and she is so nice. She bought Lukas and I a bunch of fruits, and expensive moon cakes. She didn't have to but it's so awesome. She then took us to lunch (and I fought hard to pay the bill, but she won), and took me shopping. Since I figured buying stuff in China is inexpensive, I would pack light and buy what I need in China. Bad and good news. The good news is, Maggie took me to the super department store and helped me buy everything I needed. The bad news is, everything they sell here is not like items in the U.S. So, you kinda have to settle for a different quality of items I guess. Take paper towels for example. Good luck finding the rolls we use in the States. They have us single paper towels which is not convenient to use. And who said it was inexpensive? I spent about $100 U.S. dollars on some items to use in the hospital like gloves, dishes detergent etc. Btw, Chinese hospitals do not use gloves that often so there aren't any gloves around.
Lastly, but most importantly, I want to thank all the people who made this trip possible. Thanks so much Mr. & Mrs. Khanh Nguyen, Mr. & Mrs. Mark Gong, and Mr. & Mrs. Nhan Tran (grandma and grandpa) for financially supporting this trip. Thanks Chi Yen and Tylie for donating miles and connecting me with Maggie here in Shenzhen. Thanks to all of Lukas's family and relatives for all your love, support, and prayers. Without these, our trip wouldn't be possible either.
I'm trying to keep myself busy so I can go to sleep at 10 p.m. local time to get used to the local hours. But, I feel like collapsing right now. I can barely move my fingers. I'll post more things as the come up.
Then, we arrived safely. The only good thing about that flight was how smooth the pilot did the take off and landing - no ear pressure at all! The taxi driver drove us from Hong Kong into China. That again was another nightmare. Apparently the driver had some immigration problem and so he was detained. While the Chinese officials interrogated him, we waited for 2 hours in the van breathing in all that fume. They refused to let us leave the van and go into the lobby area. Finally, the driver called his partner to come and finish the drive for us into China. As you know, once the van is "flagged," it's bad news from there. So we went through so many other security clearance check points (while other cars passed us by quickly) and had to open the boxes, etc. Lukas wasn't feeling so well this whole time. He was sneezing alot with a runny nose; he was so flushed. He didn't sleep or ate well during the flight, so he was really exhausted and sick. I started re-thinking whether this decision we made was a good one or not. I'll keep you posted I guess.
Finally, after 4 hours (it only takes about 1 hour to get into China from Hong Kong), we finally arrived at the hospital. What an ordeal! Well, the hospital is nice, clean, and spacious. We decided to save money by staying at the hospital, which I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not. There's alot of noises around. At worst, we'll probably move to a hotel and take Lukas in every day for treatments and therapies.
I'm so fortunate that my sister-in-law, Tylie, introduced me to her friend who lives in Beijing. In turn, this friend introduced me to his friend in Shenzhen. So now I have an awesome friend named Maggie in Shenzhen. You can't imagine how wonderful this is!!! I guess all this bad luck was cancelled out by us meeting Maggie. We instantly connected and she is so nice. She bought Lukas and I a bunch of fruits, and expensive moon cakes. She didn't have to but it's so awesome. She then took us to lunch (and I fought hard to pay the bill, but she won), and took me shopping. Since I figured buying stuff in China is inexpensive, I would pack light and buy what I need in China. Bad and good news. The good news is, Maggie took me to the super department store and helped me buy everything I needed. The bad news is, everything they sell here is not like items in the U.S. So, you kinda have to settle for a different quality of items I guess. Take paper towels for example. Good luck finding the rolls we use in the States. They have us single paper towels which is not convenient to use. And who said it was inexpensive? I spent about $100 U.S. dollars on some items to use in the hospital like gloves, dishes detergent etc. Btw, Chinese hospitals do not use gloves that often so there aren't any gloves around.
Lastly, but most importantly, I want to thank all the people who made this trip possible. Thanks so much Mr. & Mrs. Khanh Nguyen, Mr. & Mrs. Mark Gong, and Mr. & Mrs. Nhan Tran (grandma and grandpa) for financially supporting this trip. Thanks Chi Yen and Tylie for donating miles and connecting me with Maggie here in Shenzhen. Thanks to all of Lukas's family and relatives for all your love, support, and prayers. Without these, our trip wouldn't be possible either.
I'm trying to keep myself busy so I can go to sleep at 10 p.m. local time to get used to the local hours. But, I feel like collapsing right now. I can barely move my fingers. I'll post more things as the come up.
# posted by Lukas Stem Cell @ 5:23 AM 
