Embryonic Stem Cell Therapy for Lyme Disease: The first few days at NuTech Mediworld in New Delhi, India

Today is Tuesday, June 22nd 2010. It is my 7th day here in India and the first day that I am able to sit down and try to make sense of it all. I am in a warm, friendly and welcoming environment, but the time difference and jet-lag is something that takes me quite awhile to get over.

Today is the first day that I feel like I am adjusting to some sort of schedule. My goal in this blog is to give an informative, yet human, run-down of what one might expect when traveling here to India, both medically and otherwise.

My disclaimer is this: I am a person with Lyme Disease. I am not a doctor nor an expert. I am only me, and my goal is to help others who might want more information about traveling to India for embryonic stem cells. There have been more than twenty patients before me who have also undergone this journey and each one of us is an individual, with different symptoms and different experiences; this is only my story.

As a recap, I’d like to give a run-down of what to expect the first few days after arriving here at NuTech Mediworld:

Day 1-2

  • Travel

Day 3

  • SPECT scan (brain),
  • blood tests and
  • intro with Dr. Shroff

Day 4

  • MRI on brain,
  • ultrasound on heart and organs,
  • EKG heart,
  • chest x-ray.
  • First stem cell injection

Day 5

  • First day of physical training and regular stem cell injections

Day 1-2

I flew out of San Francisco Airport on June 14th at about 12:30 pm and took a 9 hour flight to Frankfurt, Germany. Frankfurt has been under construction for what seems like 5 years (I’ve been through there a few times before) and I would recommend selecting a layover elsewhere! It’s a walking nightmare. The flight from Frankfurt to Delhi was about 7.5 hours long. We arrived at around 1 am on Wednesday, June 16th.

Jessie (my caretaker and friend extraordinaire) and I checked through customs, found our luggage on the typical conveyor belt and walked past the security checkpoint where other people are allowed to greet you. We found a man named “O.P” waiting for us with a typed sign displaying my full name. He greeted us with an enthusiastic smile and beckoned us outside where a small mini van awaited us. The warm Delhi night air greeted us like the heat from a hot oven greets you when you first open it.

We ride in the minivan, make small talk with O.P. and marvel at the city zooming past us. India is a land of contrast, and this is apparent even in the middle of the night. (I think I will elaborate more on this aspect in a later blog.) We arrive at NuTech and settle into our little "Happy Orange" room, with a separate bathroom and balcony. (I think I scored the balcony room because not a lot of people are here during the dead of Summer. Ah, the life of a teacher.) We are beyond exhausted and stare through the nice nurse and she rattles on information, oblivious to her words. We fall asleep after 3 am, Delhi time.

Day 3

Jessie and I wake up around 7 am Delhi time and get familiar with our new room/home. My room is larger than some (which is not saying a lot), with a typical hospital bed and a small futon chair that rolls out into a sort of sleeping pad on the floor. There is a stand up closet in one corner to hang things and a small kitchen area in another, with a mini-fridge, toaster, hot water pot and some eating utensils. (I can provide a list of "room items" if you're interested — just email me). We have a small shelf with a few basic food items such as: bread, corn flakes, salt/pepper, tea, instant coffee and milk in the fridge. We're on our own for breakfast, but they provide lunch and dinner on a tray. So far, Jessie and I rate the food an 7/10, if you like Indian food, which we do. Its "eating to live," not "living to eat," that's for sure.

We are greeted at 9:30 am by Dr. Sudeep Sharma and I have blood drawn for basic tests.

He informs us that a taxi will be here at 1:30 pm to take me to a different hospital for a SPECT scan of the brain. The taxi driver helps us check in, follows us into waiting room and waits with us like a personal guide. Jessie is in the room with me during scan and wrote in her journal, “Kyla is injected with nuclear good guys in right arm, laid on table with rotating waffle maker that looks like would sqwoosh head” in her notebook. What can I say? It’s painless. We then took the SPECT results back with us in large envelope containing large, laminated photos of my brain.

Upon entering the hospital at 4 pm, we are summoned to Dr. Geeta Shroff’s office for greetings and to discuss SPECT results. It shows that my brain is not getting sufficient oxygen. I’m not “too bad,” but should be much better. The scan is mostly yellow and orange with some darker red areas; these redder areas are the spots that are not receiving adequate oxygen, due to Lyme. I know that some Lyme patients have even darker regions and that I am fortunate to be starting treatment in a less severe state; it should be easier for me to recover. Dr. Shroff assures me that I should have a fully oxygenated brain indicated by a whiter color on the scan within two months. I’m too tired to talk much further, so she send us both back to bed.

We nap until 6 pm where I have another blood test. I’m not sure what these are for, but I’m assuming it’s a basic metabolic panel testing things like my liver and kidney function. I'm assured copies of everything before I go home. We’re back asleep by 7:30 pm and wake up, of course, at like 4:30 am...

Stay tuned!