September 12, 2010
Its hard to believe 3 months have passed already since William's last routine scans. The approach of these scans seemed even more stressful than previous because of their timing. After some problems (shall we say) with our scans in June at Upstate Hospital, we were firm on returning to Memorial Sloan-Kettering for future scans. Technically, William was due for scans in mid-September. I had originally requested the scans be done the last week in September, since my father would be retired by then (and available to travel with William and I) and it would have provided adequate time for William to recover from his gastric surgery scheduled for mid-September. Well, that idea was squashed by Dr. Modak (oncologist from Memorial) because it would have been too long delayed....yeah, kind of like a slap in the face to remind you of the reality of just how dangerous this disease really is.
Despite my many phone call efforts between Memorial and the two doctors involved in William's gastric surgery in Syracuse, our final plans ended with scans in NYC for September 13th, 14th, 15th and surgery at Upstate Hospital in Syracuse on September 16th....far from optimal, but it was just how it was going to be. Just another example of how we are not in control of anything when dealing with this disease.
Understandably, I had a lot of anxiety in the mere traveling logistics to pull this off. Let's face it, William is not what I'd describe as a flexible traveler....examine the facts:
he rarely sleeps in the car,
he has very strong lungs that love to be heard when he is not happy
heck, he has yet to even sleep through a night with all the familiarity of his home comforts
....and he requires A LOT of supplies for his daily care needs.
Yes, the anxiety of this traveling experience was high, to say the least.
Our Neuroblastoma friends, the Williams Family, had tipped us off to the Corporate Angel Network. The Network arranges free air transportation for cancer patients traveling to treatment using the empty seats on corporate jets. I had a fabulous experience working with Corporate Angels. They were very accommodating to help us make round-trip arrangements to fly to NYC - a flight of 47 minutes in the air, as opposed to an average of 8 long hours in the car.
AND, William got to experience his first flight in the process!
As we waited for our corporate flying companions, William enjoyed gnawing on a peanut butter chew.
Its hard to believe 3 months have passed already since William's last routine scans. The approach of these scans seemed even more stressful than previous because of their timing. After some problems (shall we say) with our scans in June at Upstate Hospital, we were firm on returning to Memorial Sloan-Kettering for future scans. Technically, William was due for scans in mid-September. I had originally requested the scans be done the last week in September, since my father would be retired by then (and available to travel with William and I) and it would have provided adequate time for William to recover from his gastric surgery scheduled for mid-September. Well, that idea was squashed by Dr. Modak (oncologist from Memorial) because it would have been too long delayed....yeah, kind of like a slap in the face to remind you of the reality of just how dangerous this disease really is.
Despite my many phone call efforts between Memorial and the two doctors involved in William's gastric surgery in Syracuse, our final plans ended with scans in NYC for September 13th, 14th, 15th and surgery at Upstate Hospital in Syracuse on September 16th....far from optimal, but it was just how it was going to be. Just another example of how we are not in control of anything when dealing with this disease.
Understandably, I had a lot of anxiety in the mere traveling logistics to pull this off. Let's face it, William is not what I'd describe as a flexible traveler....examine the facts:
he rarely sleeps in the car,
he has very strong lungs that love to be heard when he is not happy
heck, he has yet to even sleep through a night with all the familiarity of his home comforts
....and he requires A LOT of supplies for his daily care needs.
Yes, the anxiety of this traveling experience was high, to say the least.
Our Neuroblastoma friends, the Williams Family, had tipped us off to the Corporate Angel Network. The Network arranges free air transportation for cancer patients traveling to treatment using the empty seats on corporate jets. I had a fabulous experience working with Corporate Angels. They were very accommodating to help us make round-trip arrangements to fly to NYC - a flight of 47 minutes in the air, as opposed to an average of 8 long hours in the car.
AND, William got to experience his first flight in the process!
As we waited for our corporate flying companions, William enjoyed gnawing on a peanut butter chew.
~ one for each hand ~
The boys checked out our wings...its a guy thing!
It's always hard to say goodbye to Daddy and Nicholas. They were staying home to maintain Nicholas' pre-school routine.
William did well through the taxing and take-off of our flight. I think the noise bothered him the most. He was definitely curious as to what was happening out the window. I just love this expression!
We flew just over the clouds, so picturesque.
Our gracious corporate angel sponsor for the flight to Farmingdale was the Michael Goldberg family, owners of Raymour and Flanagan's. We flew with Mike and his daughter, Shera. Shera had a bag she kept with her at her seat and Mike's "luggage" is on the seat. The rest is ours...(gulp)
William did well for most of the trip. About half way into the fight, Grammy and I had to turn into creative entertainers with our limited resources. To top it off, William clearly had a poop about 20 minutes into the flight, as smelled by all. When Mom and I realized this, we both shared the look of smell embarrassment.
Our entertaining worked well for about 35 minutes, then I ended up getting William out of his carseat. He snuggled right in, as if he just needed a little TLC on his first flight.
We were greeted in Farmingdale with a beautiful executive terminal and a luxurious bathroom, stocked with every commodity you could want (and jugs of Listerine!). Thankfully, there was a changing table....we really needed it!
A nauseating 90-minute van ride later, we made it to the Ronald McDonald House on East 73rd Street....with our stuff....
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