Crazy from the Heat (or the formaldehyde)

Before I give you a play by play of today's adventures (like it or not), I will come right out and say that today J.R. received his first stem cell treatment! Hooray!

Tim and I are convinced our hotel (room) is situated directly on the equator. Tim is so sunburn that he can barely wear clothing, and I wore long sleeves today to protect my arms (and my ego- I didn't want the ICM doctors to say "I told you so!") Believe it or not, the clinic rep told us that Costa Rica is experiencing a phenomena that is causing the sun's rays to beam down perpendicularly (we believe over the Hotel Intercontinental). Our beet-red appearance (along with Tim's incessant butchering of the Spanish language) screams turistas even louder than ever.

Thank the Lord we were easily able to fill up the day with fun activities to keep J.R. busy. We could have easily done a day trip to the beach or rain forest, but with our luck we'd hit a snag and miss our 2:30 p.m. appointment altogether. Instead we hit the mall, played in the hotel fountain, and exposed ourselves to toxic chemicals.

This afternoon we returned to our room to freshen up for J.R.'s appointment. A smell that I can only describe as a combination of glue (the kind you are DEFINITELY not supposed to sniff), formaldehyde, turpentine, and gasoline poured from the elevator. I was lightheaded by the time we hit the 5th floor. As we stepped out of the elevator and into our room, I thought "who is burning carcinogen flavored incense?" We were absolutely overwhelmed by the smell (and fear we'd pass out and die after ICM had cashed our check but before having administered any treatment!). Loooong long story short, I packed our bags in 7 minutes flat and we were off to another room. I won't tell you that I reminded the concierge we were in this country to make our son well, not worse. Pura vida!

Okay so the TREATMENT...(you know, the whole reason why we are here!) went fairly well. Dr. Lara cut off J.R.'s bandages that kept his catheter clean and dry, which we knew would prove anticlimactic because we KNEW J.R. would love this part only to learn he'd be rewrapped after the injection. Tim had to hold J.R. down (as we fully expected) and our little buddy was pretty unhappy about about the whole thing. Then again, he wont even tolerate a doctor looking in his ears. All in all we are THRILLED we chose to utilize the catheter. Five minutes later J.R. was back to his same ol self, laughing and wanting his Leapster game (and the 100 other things we promised him over the 5 minutes it took to receive the cells). One injection down, three to go.

Tomorrow we're taking a trip to the zoo after a 10:30 a.m. treatment. Can't wait. Gotta go pack my sunscreen :).

P.S. To see some pictures of our trip so far, click on the Flickr links on the left hand side of this page.

Peace!