LimaFest 9/'08

So... Last weekend Dr. Lima was here in Detroit, I think mostly to give a presentation on research, methods, etc. Let's review.

If you haven't been following über-closely, Dr. (Carlos) Lima is the front man for a band of neurologists in Portugal who perform a pretty complicated adult (non-embryonic) stem cell transplant for treatment of spinal cord injury (details: 'net search for "OMA" or "olfactory mucosal autograft", or read some of my older posts). Noncoincidentally, this is the operation I had 11 April 2008. Several of his patients are/have been living on the same floor of the I-House where I am, doing similar hardcore PT, and having awesome results. Beyond those of us at RIM, his patients are all over in Detroit - including even the one other wheeling dude at the Death Cab concert! I don't remember exactly how many people have had the surgery from around the world so far, something like 150-175 or so.

Anyway, I digress. Dr. Lima was here the whole weekend; Friday night a few of us went to have calamari 'n' wine and just spend time with him and some of the people from where he was presenting. Yum, squid! Not as good (or bizarre) as takoyaki, of course, but still quality cephalopod cuisine.

Then Saturday afternoon we went out of Detroit Proper to the WtLtSCIR facility to attend the seminar and schmooze more. Dr. Lima talked about his surgery and recent advances a little, and threw in a smidge about other stem cell surgeries, but mostly discussed the benefits of full weight bearing and braceless training in PT for SCI patients, particularly post-operation. Oversimplified summary: (1) the surgery yields results, (2) don't use leg braces. This may not sound like the most fascinating of lectures to non-SCI folks, but I promise, it was great. Dr. Lima is an information machine, and even though his op quite clearly speaks for itself, his style makes it energetic/riveting/xlnt.

Moving on, the next speaker, a superpowered lab research master, talked about the aforementioned surgery's effects in rats - scientists heart rats, after all. O-Summary: they used to think the procedure didn't work well enough in non-humans... But look! It works with rats, too. Come on, FDA, approve this stuff already!

To round out the PowerPoint party, we went through the slides from an SCI doctor who couldn't attend (appendicitis, anyone?), annotated on the fly by some therapist surrogates. O-Summary: (1) rehab is better when it's holistic, and (2) Dr. Lima is right.

Okay, there ya go; that's about it for a quasi-objective recap. On the more subjective end, the handful of us from therapy were thoroughly excited to talk to Dr. Lima, and, well, show off... It's incredible to see what people can do that simply wasn't going to happen before that trip to Lisbon. I don't think it's appro for me to share many details about other rehabbers, but let's just say they can do some pretty sweet stuff.

Ah, did I mention that I spent the whole weekend pushing myself around in a manual chair? *evil grin*