I forgot my card reader so no big camera pics until we get home! Here’s a few more from the canal. Kreg went grocery shopping for us, so we made spaghetti and salad in the room. Lounging and getting ready for our first treatment day tomorrow. He will get 15 million stem cells tomorrow via an IV infusion. It should only take about 2 minutes or so once the IV is placed. Pray for us on that one because blood draw wasn’t easy today. Despite all the pep talks, he still lost it and we had to hold him for it. We brought our own treasure box of toys and goodies, because obviously bribery is where it’s at!

He will get 60 million stem cells total, so four treatment days with 15 million per day. We have morning treatments each day, which is nice. Then we have the entire day to do whatever we want depending on how he’s feeling.

 We took a little trip to the Miraflores Locks, to see the ships pass through the Panama Canal. The kids could not care less, but it was super interesting to watch! I took some big camera photos..... I’ll post later. The people here are SO nice. Everyone is very accommodating. Our cab driver took us through the residential areas, downtown, the US consulate/embassy and gave us a long lesson on the Panamanian way of life.

 Squeezed in some R & R today!

 Here is the view from the Stem Cell Institute, 63rd floor. Today was just a blood draw and medical history visit. The blood draw went about as I expected. He hated everything about it but later said it wasn’t that bad. Tomorrow is the first cell treatment, so today we will relax by the pool and maybe go see the Panama Canal since we don’t know how he will be feeling the rest of the week.

 Our hotel view.

 View of Panama City from our room!

We are all checked into the hotel. The flight was long but the kids did great! I can’t believe how well they take care of you on Copa Airlines (Panama’s airline). They fed us twice, all the movies you want, and drink service every hour! We are waiting on room service and getting to bed since our first appointment is tomorrow at 9am. The hotel is super nice, the views are incredible. I’ll post more pictures tomorrow in the daylight, but we have a really cool room overlooking the ocean and pool. It’s basically like an apartment with a kitchen, dining room, huge fancy tub and bedroom. 

We stepped off the plane to a person holding a sign with our name, she scooped us up and we got to skip the customs line. They have this whole process down, which made it so easy because the airport was packed and kind of overwhelming. 

On another note.... hope the tooth fairy makes it to Panama. Little man lost his tooth (I had to channel Auntie Kim and yank it out!). 

Here we go. We are ten days away from our adventure to Panama. I figured this would be the best way to chronicle this experience. It's come full circle. We started out Colt's journey by writing a blog, so what better way to continue to write this story. Thanks for tagging along.