On Tuesday I sat in dappled light on my balcony and caught a sunbeam while eating my lunch.
In the branches of the Neem tree I noticed a nest with baby chicks squawking for food from their
Mummy. I think they were crows. I discovered I had company and wasn‘t alone after all. The
Neem tree is well known for its medicinal qualities especially for treating diabetes and
apparently it makes your skin glow. With that knowledge, Mum ate five leaves immediately.
They taste very bitter. Upon finding out that they are also used as an anti-fertility herb, I stopped
taking the leaves in fear of jeopardizing Mr. Singhs‘ prediction of my giving birth to two baby
girls.
Gabrielle was a little panic stricken on the second day of her visit. Distraught and sweating she
tore through the door of Room 201. The hospital sits adjacent to a park and children‘s play area.
What we thought would be a great idea turned out to be disastrous. Bearing two small jars of
marbles, Gab entered the park. She eyed five or six kids and headed their way. With cupped
hands she displayed the marbles. Big mistake! In an instant as she began to hand marbles to the
bare-footed ragged little ones, she was literally mobbed by about thirty pulling at her arms, her
clothing, and her legs—all begging. The begging grew louder each moment: ―Laaaydy,
Laaaaaaaydy more, more…Lady…more!‖ Flustered she passed the entire second jar to what she
thought was the teacher who glared at her with a look to kill…you know—the type of evil eye
that speaks louder than words: ―Thanks but no thanks for creating a problem that I now have to
deal with‖. In a quick minute, the kids were snatching marbles, crying and Gab was in the midst
of a small riot. Upon her return we decided that we will either opt to keep the other toys in our room or beg Dale to bring an entire box of marbles for his visit in two weeks to appease every
kid on the block. How much is the baggage weight allowance per bag for international travel?
Yesterday‘s giving was a little more toned down—but shocking. We meandered out of the
confines of our apartment complex and around the corner.

When I thought I had seen the worst,
it got worse. I am not sure what is worse than worse…and how bad the standard of living can
actually get. Trash is strewn on the sides of the street where I‘ve also noticed children, dogs and
cows defecating and urinating. This is the same place that children, dogs and cows forage for
scraps to eat. Virtually on top of the piles of rubbish are blue-tarpaulin tent-like dwellings. The
day before Gabrielle‘s visit, I rolled down this street with Trevor, another Australian patient
receiving treatment from Dr. Shroff. A small infant who lay motionless on a piece of board was
covered in about two hundred flies.
I turned to Trevor: ―Do you think he‘s alright?‖
―I think he‘s dead!‖ he whispered. We rolled on, turned around at the end of the street and rolled
back. The child moved ever so slightly…and the next day he was gone from that spot.
I feel so fortunate. Gabrielle passed the marbles to a teacher who was giving alphabet lessons to
tiny little ones using square slates with chalk. They were all beautifully behaved and nodded
their heads with hands in the prayer position in unison, ―Namaste‖. They are happy. I ponder:
What is happiness and where does it stem from? They have nothing and yet they are happy.
As we return to the apartment, my lungs are filled with pollution from our venture outside. My
head hurts and I blow dirt from my nostrils. My separation from home has me longing for and
has given me a new appreciation for the beauty, the cleanliness, the crisp unpolluted air and clear
distant horizons. I miss everything so much. I miss the simple pleasures of cooking in my
kitchen and eating fresh fruit with the skin on; eating crunchy lettuce, mouth watering Swiss
chard or kale, and fresh pink wild salmon cooked medium rare. Ah, to drink water from the
tap… But mostly I miss my dog Tucker, Dale, and my dear friends. I miss snuggling, I miss
kissing, I miss being in love and feeling loved. I miss taking Tucker for his daily walk and
watching him play catch in the river. Oh, I miss the river…gazing at its constant rhythm in
motion—a metaphor for my life. Mum‘s departure was awful. She was haggled by a horrible man begging for rupees right through the departure gate. He had zero empathy and refused to budge, let go of her sleeve, and allow us the pleasure of a last private hug to share some quick loving moments together. For this reason alone I had an immediate love-hate relationship with India. I imagined Mum half giving the middle finger to Delhi as the plane‘s wheels left the ground, and half holding her hands in the prayer position bidding a Namaste of complete gratitude saying,
―Thank you India, thank you Dr. Shroff, thank you, thank you, thank you…Until I see you again.

P.S. Now Gabrielle has yellow curry on her green shirt. The curry continues to haunt…

As I type this email communique, I am sitting propped up in a hospital bed at the older hospital.
An air conditioner is humming in the middle of a window and a fan is whirling above my head. I
have a catheter in my spinal cord and strips of micro pore tape plastered across and up my entire
back. I feel like a mummy. A thin plastic tube runs up the length of my spine and connects to a
port…the port for the magical stem cells to be injected into my body.

My room is sparse but I have all that I need. God Bless my dear Gabrielle. She has been with
me for three and a half days and she is my angel per usual. She sleeps on a pull-out mattress on
the floor by my bed, keeps me company, plays Scrabble, laughs, chats, and entertains. We have
had more quality time together in these past three days than we have since our last trip we made
together. I adore traveling with Gabrielle—she is so easy to be with and completely
accommodating. We like the same foods, we crave our morning cuppa together, and we are even
reading the same book on virtually the same page without planning it. I love Gabrielle so much
and I am blessed that her husband Todd let me have her for this precious time.
Gabrielle has witnessed me make some more strides forth with my stem cell treatment.
Although I am not sure how to tactfully convey my ground breaking news to the world, I shall
resort to the simple facts…I had my first bowel movement on my own in fifteen years last night.
Yippee! I have also emptied my bladder completely on my own four times since yesterday with
only a small residual of fluid left (which is normal). Now, Gab is a true friend. It was so funny I
must share at least some of the facts. I was sitting on the pot as Gabrielle held my legs open and
I held the plastic container to collect my urine and measure the amounts. After my maximum
effort exerted and fully voiding, Gab‘s nose gave a wiggle, a sniff and she asked, ―Are you sure
you didn‘t do anything else? Have a look‖. I looked and low and behold, a small nugget was in
the loo. My God! I shall spare you any other details, but this is truly miraculous given that I
haven‘t been able to use my bodily functions normally in fifteen years. Thank you Dr. Geeta
Shroff and Dr. Ashish. I feel like I am becoming normal again (whatever normal is).
On Thursday Gabrielle and I checked into Room 201 at Nutech Mediworld. A nurse inserted an
intravenous needle into the back of my hand and filled my veins with burning antibiotics mixed
with sodium chloride. At 12:30 p.m. I was rolled into the Operating Theater surrounded by nurses in blue gowns with face masks. I was then transferred on to the familiar skinny operating
table and told to lie sideways in the tightest fetal position with my chin and knees tucked into my
chest. Dr. Ashish proceeded to inject my site of injury with anesthetic to numb the area. He then
inserted a catheter below my injury level in between the spinal processes to the outside of the
spinal cord. The tube to the catheter runs up the outside of my spine and attaches to a port over
my shoulder. Tape covers my entire back and is now beginning to itch. My body was then
stretched out and Dr. Ashish injected three fat syringes full of stem cells into the port. More than
fifty million stem cells were injected and flooded my lower spinal cord. Like liquid jelly, I could
literally feel pressure as the icy cold cells filtered through into my cells, my veins, my nerves and
down through my buttocks into my thighs, my calves, and into my feet. It was as though a
million rubber bands were wrapped around my legs compressing every cell and firing them into
action. With each injection the pressure increased, and searing pain swept through my lower
back, abdomen and down my legs. My nerve pain intensified and then pins and needles tingled
all the way to my toes. I was wheeled back to my room and lay on my back with two bricks
under my bed tilted downhill for four hours. Another fifty million or so stem cells were injected
that evening. Two more doses were injected through the port the following day. I was required
to lie on my stomach for two hour intervals after each dose, with my head still downhill. With
the third and fourth doses, I felt intense pressure in my head around my ears, nose and sinus
cavities. It was as though I was immersed fifty feet below the ocean‘s surface sensing the need
to equalize my ears. After a short while, the pressure and pain subsided completely. It was after
the third massive dose at approx. 4 p.m. in the afternoon that I had my little miracle moment in
the toilet. Yes, the stem cells work that rapidly—I find it hard to believe myself.
Today is my third day without showering, my arm pits stink, my hair is greasy, and the tape is
still itching and stuck to my back. I keep reminding myself, ―It‘s worth it Amanda, it‘s worth it.
Picture every stem cell bathed in golden light sprinkling loving healing energy throughout your
body like fairy dust. It‘s all worth it!‖ Now is the time to bring my higher spiritual self to the
forefront and bring it into balance with my physical, mental, and emotional self. This is my
chance in my lifetime to crush all iniquity in my life and live more vivaciously than ever before.
I continue to pee on my own and life is fabulous. I am grateful beyond description.
I thanked Dr. Ashish with immense gratitude. Later I learned that Ashish in Hindi means
Blessings. I give blessings to you my friend for your great work for humanity. He and Dr.
Shroff have the most amazing jobs in the world. EVERYONE in this hospital shows
improvement! And it isn‘t because of a pharmaceutical drug to band aide an illness and
temporarily treat a patient. The human embryonic stem cell lines created by Dr. Shroff is a cure
for humanity—I see her treatment as life giving life. In Dr. Ashish‘s own words: ―This is as big
as the discovery of fire. You have been injected with the most intelligent chip ever created. It is
God given.‖
I am on the third day of my procedure and Gabrielle is venturing out into Delhi on her own for
the first time. She has returned to the apartment to have a shower and grab some tuna fish that
we‘ll stir into some mayo for lunch on Rye Crackers. This afternoon she‘ll fight the traffic in a
taxi and visit a couple of the more reputable markets for some shopping and trinkets. She‘ll be
accompanied by Carroll, another angelic lady who is looking after a Parkinson‘s patient named
David Moore from Perth, Australia. David, like everyone in this hospital, has shown remarkable
improvements. He and Carroll flew into Delhi barely three-weeks ago. When I first met David I
observed that life was slowly being sucked out of him—he was expressionless with nothing more
than a mumble for speech…and he hardly moved his body. He has the freezing kind of
Parkinsons (as opposed to the shaking kind). After 2 1⁄2 weeks on embryonic stem cell therapy,
David walks independently across the room consciously picking his knees up high; he is writing
his name perfectly (and is preparing a love letter for his wife in Australia); and he is speaking in
his mother tongue with a heavy English accent that hasn‘t been heard for the past sixteen years.
Apparently with the return of his speech came the old accent. So, I‘ll always be an Aussie, no
matter how hard I fight to retain my accent while living abroad, it will always be there deep
inside. Once an Aussie, always an Aussie.
Gabrielle and I retorted that we wanted love letters from David too. He quickly responded, ―I‘ll
photocopy some for you‖. He has his humor back and a sparkle in his eye in just two weeks. I
have my own love letters that arrive on a weekly basis from Dale. He is beautifully old
fashioned and the entire hospital staff watches me light up when a letter arrives from Basalt
addressed to Dr. Geeta Shroff, Personal for Amanda Boxtel. Thank you Sweetheart, your letters
keep me alive and remind me how much I miss you.
Another Aussie patient residing in a room on the second floor is Martin. Martin is 34 and has
diabetes. He has been blind twenty-four years seeing light and dark only, and has been receiving
stem cell treatment in Dr. Shroff‘s hospital for eleven days. Martin has also been catheterizing to
empty his bladder. This past week Martins‘ insulin levels have decreased by remarkable
amounts, he is slowly regaining his vision (he could make out Gabrielle‘s eyebrows and vague
facial features), and he is fully emptying his bladder on his own while standing up. WOW!
What more can I say as I write with a tear in my eye and amazement in my gut. Astounding,
simply astounding!