Welcome to the Land of Noa

Welcome Friends and Family!

As many of you already know, we'll be traveling down to North Carolina about a week so that Noa can have an umbilical stem cell transfusion - this is a new process using her own umbilical stem cells which we hope will help to repair some of the damage caused by a pre-natal stroke that left her blind and dealing with a number of developmental issues.

We know you all have a lot of questions - everything from "what is a pre-natal stroke?" to "what is this stem cell thing supposed to do?" and "how does it work?" I'm not sure we can answer all of your questions here. In fact, there are many questions that we don't know the answers to ourselves!

For those of you who don't know Noa in person, I should let you know that she is one of the most vibrant, fun-loving and optimistic people I know. It's easy to get terrified and/or depressed reading all this medical information and to get the image of Noa's situation as sad. But when you're around her, it's hard to feel that - she has an infectious laugh and she loves to use it. She even wakes up laughing! And for a kid who can't walk or talk she sure does boss us around and exhaust us!

Noa communicates with us through sign language which she has learned, very much like Helen Keller did, by showing her hand-over-hand. Like any toddler she spends a lot of time wanting us to do "more" of this, or "stop" that over and over and over again. She is learning to walk with a walker and loves to be up on her feet. Once she finds her sense of balance, we'll all be in serious trouble!

Noa attends pre-school 5-days a week at the Jewish Guild for the Blind. She comes and goes on, yes, the short bus. In addition to providing her with contact with other visually impaired kids her age, and usual kidstuff like music and art, they also provide physical therapy, occupational therapy, vision therapy, speech therapy, feeding therapy as well as orientation and mobility. In addition to that we take her to extra physical therapy and music therapy. So she's a busy busy kid!

So welcome to the Land of Noa. It's a complicated place, it's a fascinating place, it's a wild ride, it's a laugh-fest and sometimes a cry-fest and it's ruled by an adorable, blond bundle of energy who is, as my friend Jim Abar says, cute like Pebbles, strong like Bam-Bam.