uses OEG cells from aborted fetuses. Lima advised Aaron that he was not a good candidate because his injury was incomplete. Lima’s procedure is more invasive than Huang’s, and those with incomplete injuries have more to lose. Surgery always carries a risk.
Huang’s surgery costs $20,000 and airfare runs around $2,000. The Dempseys needed additional funds for intensive follow-up Physical Therapy at the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan’s Center for SCI Recovery, where Americans are advised to go. It is crucial to maximize whatever benefits the surgery might make possible.
While at Xi Shan Hospital in November 2005, Roger Parsons also met David Landewee, who was treated by Huang and frequently returned to meet with him. Landewee’s progress impressed both Roger and James. “David Landewee looked like the one who had gotten the most back, so he was definitely the example of what could happen potentially,” says James.
Landewee, 45, from Liberty, Mo., a T4 complete para from a 1995 car accident, says his surgery involved incisions above and below the point of injury and injections of 500,000 OEG cells into the spinal canal at each site. “I started noticing improvements in my abductors and hip flexors right away,” he says. For the next four weeks, he received treatments of acupuncture, massage and physical therapy six times per week.
When he returned home, he went to a rehab institute in Kansas City, Mo., where he stood and walked with braces in a walker for the first time. “I continued to improve for about 18 months. Then it leveled off. That’s what I got back—I could feel my stomach, my abdominals, my lower back.” At first, using a walker, he could cover 20 feet, but it was exhausting. “As it got easier, I could go about 100 yards with a walker, but it took me about 20 minutes, and I’d have to stop about every 30-40 feet.” He still stands and walks with braces in a walker, but only for exercise.
Landewee says he also got feeling back in his internal organs. “Before the surgery, I would have bladder accidents, but I haven’t had one since the surgery,” which he attributes to better awareness of his need to cath.
Functionally, Landewee went to being a relatively high-level para to being a relatively low-level para, but he still depends on a manual wheelchair. He says that he is glad he went to China, but
he has become a little disappointed over time, which he thinks is normal. “As long as you keep improving, you’re just tickled to death. Once it plateaus, then you want more.”
While James Parsons was impressed with Landewee’s progress, he was beginning to realize that making his own decision would not be easy. “The hard thing is you do as much research as you can online, but unless you actually go and meet each person that’s been through it and actually see videos of the before and after, and follow up with them for a couple of months, it’s hard to know,” he says. “Even another T6 para has different sensation levels and feelings, and a huge gain to me might not be a huge gain to someone else, so it’s really hard to gather objective information.”
Faced with a wait list of more than one year, James decided to secure a spot just to keep his options open, so he arranged to have a current MRI and a Motor, touch, and pinprick test score sent to Xi Shan Hospital.
While Roger Parsons was favorably impressed with what he saw at Xi Shan Hospital, Aaron Dempsey’s initial experience there sounds like a nightmare of cultural shock: “I thought we had the wrong place when we arrived,” he says. “I’d never been out of the U.S., I had expectations of certain levels of comfort, and they had absolutely none of that. It looked like a rundown hospital. I was a little disappointed. After the first few days, I almost turned around and came back home.” But the Dempseys stayed, and Aaron was operated on a week later.
“Just before the surgery, I was scared to death, he says. “I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I was trying to ask the doctors what the procedure would be like, and they would just look at me with a blank stare and that’s when I started freaking out.” The next thing he knew he was waking up in his room. “My neck hurt so bad—it was worse than after my accident. Then after a few days, the soreness went away and the only thing that hurt was my shoulders. Apparently they leaned me over something to work on my neck. I was wrapped around this thing for about 6 hours, and it really tore my shoulders up.”
After a week, Dempsey began to notice changes. “I could feel more when someone would touch me, and I was sweating a lot more. I thought it was a great sign. And I was able to move my leg a lot better (he could move his right leg slightly before the procedure).
Like many others with SCI treated by Huang, Dempsey noticed sensory improvements most of all. “Before, I could feel my right side but nothing on the front of me. I could now feel my stomach on the right side of my body, and I couldn’t feel there before. The left side was still more or less numb, but I could feel it just a little bit better.”
Areas of new sensation, he said, improved daily and then plateaued about three weeks post-surgery. “From what Huang said, I was expecting that it would take a lot longer
