Here in Philly
By Margot | August 21, 2009
It’s 6am Philly time. I came in yesterday around 5pm and feel much better being here. Thank you Lisa B. for waking up at 4 in the morning to take me to the airport.  I couldn’t stand the thought of me getting here and Sam already in isolation. I was able to sleep next to him last night. Sam is comfortable with morphine around the clock but his right arm is still very sensitive and he doesn’t want to move it much and we have to give him an added boost every now and then.  Yesterday he was up doing legos and playing video games. He was in too much pain to go to the Phillys game on Wednesday night.  Kim Kow came through with tickets about two minutes after I posted on our web site.  Kim, I’m so sorry. He’s still talking about wanting to go to a game so maybe when we are done with all of this.  We watched 17 Again last night until 1am (still on CA time) and he said it was great. It is definitely too old for him but I think/hope some of the stuff went over his head.Â
I am up because they were supposed to put the catheter in this morning around 5:30 or 6:00 but the nurse came in and said that they won’t take him until 10:00am. Bummer because he’s not too excited about the idea as you can imagine and I was hoping he’d still be kind of sleepy and not too hungry being NPO. Maybe since he’s still on CA time that will be the case. We are in a lead lined room with plastic all over everything.  I feel like we are about to become Meryl Streep and Cher in Silkwood. Sam woke up when they did his vitals and said, “Mom, am I radioactive yet?”Â
Neil slept at the Ronald McDonald House last night and I stayed here.  He’s been doing a fantastic job keeping Sam’s spirits up. I don’t know how he’s still going – must be complete adrenaline.  He said Dr. Mosse told him how fantastic Sam looks and that she looked at last week’s scan yesterday and couldn’t believe it was the same kid. I don’t know if that scares the sh$###t out of me or makes me happy that he looks so well – a little of both I guess. Both she and Dr. Maris seem pretty upbeat that Sam will respond to this.Â
Uncle Matt is here and has been great. He brought Rosco and Sam got unhooked yesterday for a quick Rosco visit. He’s going today to get some puzzles and games and movies. Everything we use will have to be thrown away. I brought a bunch of books to read. Sam wants to start with the Island of the Blue Dolphins since I told him how much I liked it growing up. I figured it was appropriate given we’ll be on our own little radioactive Ilsand for the next few days.
Andy and Charlie are doing all right. My mom and Elizabeth stayed with them yesterday and last night. Colleen took Andy to tennis camp and his first soccer practice and he went swimming at Monica’s in the afternoon so I think he was pretty beat.   She said he told Jake on the way to soccer that he’s the best guy on the team and then on the way home he conceded that Dusty was pretty good too.  He doesn’t have much of a confidence problem :-)  Charlie is getting ready to go to school and says he’ll be potty trained “as soon as he goes to school.”  I hope he’s doing ok at home.   Grandma Joan and Uncle Tommy and Cousin Abby are coming in today to stay with he and Andy and Neil will be home tomorrow.
That’s it for now. They hang the MIBG around noon today and then I’ll be laptopless so I’ll have Neil or Colleen update if they can.
Thanks everyone for the kind comments and prayers and good thoughts. Please keep them coming. Sam is a fighter.  He still amazes me every day.
Margot
Topics: Progress Reports | 23 Comments »
The New Plan
By Margot | August 19, 2009
I probably shouldn’t write this now as there are tears streaming down my face and things will look brighter surely in a few days.  They are admitting Sam for pain today and we will do regular MIBG starting on Friday. His pain is disease progresssion. The result of his bone marrow biopsy from last week showed almost complete replacement of the marrow. Dr. Mosse was very hopeful that Sam will have a good response to MIBG and that as soon as he starts treatment his pain will be under control. She thinks we have as good a shot with regular MIBG so that is good and it’s important to get some treatment started now as in a week things may be out of control.  The goal is to do two MIBG treatments and then a stem cell rescue if needed.   Then if we have a good response we can get on something else that looks promising.  He’s always responded to treatment in the past when he’s had pain and the pain has gone away within a day. Dr. Mosse says his disease is mostly marrow disease and Sam is in great shape so we are still very hopeful. Somehow his platelets are still 117.
Sam’s day yesterday sucked. I already wrote that but Neil said he threw up on the plane all over everything. Neil just threw away the DVD player and then he had to go straight to the emergency room where they discovered he didn’t actually have a broken arm and then he went home on oxycotton which made his stomach hurt. Neil said he didn’t sleep well last night and so we decided he should be admitted for pain control.  He really wanted to go to the Phillies game tonight and Dr. Mosse said she’d give him a pass after some pain meds but Neil said tickets are impossible to get.   He will have his catheter placed on Friday morning and they will hang the MIBG around noon.
It’s funny because I was going to write a post with this title a few days ago after a conversation between Sam and Andy. Sam said. “I think I’ll go to UPenn for college so I can play soccer for them, Dad says they have a good soccer team. “  Andy’s response, “I’m going to play soccer in Spain.” Sam: “Spain? You can’t go to college in Spain. Where are you going to play in college? I haven’t decided where I’m going to play professionally yet but maybe Brazil. Don’t you want to be on my team?” Andy, “Oh yeah, I forgot I love Brazil and we should be on the same team. We’ll play for Brazil.”  As big Joe said, “You know Brazil, Spain, they’re young, they’re flexible. ”
Please pray for this new medical plan to work so Sam can get to work on his plan.
Margot
Topics: Progress Reports | 25 Comments »
Sam’s arm probably not broken
By Margot | August 18, 2009
So, the radiology team at CHOP doesn’t think Sam’s arm is broken and the head of radiology looked at the x-ray. So I’m not going to post too much here as I may have a new or different story shortly but the pain in Sam’s arm isn’t anywhere near where SD thought they saw a break.Â
I’ll post more as I know it and I may hop on a plane earlier than planned.
Margot
Topics: Progress Reports | 6 Comments »
Holy Crap!
By Margot | August 18, 2009
Well I was in the middle of a post telling you that Sam was having severe arm pain for the last two nights and that we were talking with Dr. Maris about whether or not we needed to regular MIBG starting this Friday.  I don’t need to say we’ve had a sick feeling and no sleep for two days.  Well Children’s San Diego just called me and gave me the results of yesterday’s x-ray (Thank you thank you Steve Vanni for suggesting we get it done) and Sam has a broken humerous.  We had a sleep over on Sunday night with Joe and Jake and they were roughhousing and playing tackle football amonst the comforters and the pillows but as I watched them tackling I thought it was too rough and asked them to knock it off but apparently I was too late.  I don’t know why Jayne just got the wet read of the x-ray on her desk at 12;15 today when we were in there at 1:30 yesterday but I could kill myself for not staying for the results I just assumed it wasn’t broken and wanted to get Sam out of there because he did not want to be there.    Neil said Sam just had the worst plane flight of his life and was in extreme pain even with the pain pills we’ve been giving him.  I knew it wasn’t good when Neil called before they took off and asked if Lortab was the strongest thing we had.  Sam’s  bones are brittle for some reason. I don’t know if it’s still from the  zometa or something else but poor guy.  He said he felt better yesterday and he even swam and played soccer at the park last night but when he went to bed last night he was in a lot of pain and this morning he was in a lot pain and apparently the whole plane flight was awful.  They are currently taking a cab the emergency room at CHOP and getting it casted.   While we are elated that it’s only a broken arm and not disease pain, it sucks for Sam to have a cast again. Argh.    Â
More soon.
Margot
Topics: Progress Reports | Comments Off on Holy Crap!
On the Way.
By Margot | August 12, 2009
I dropped Neil and Sam off at the airport this morning at 5:15am. We left a little more time today for the 6:30 flight and Neil said the security line was still bad but they were fine as they didn’t have any bags to check and had their boarding passes. Charlie came with me because he was up and Vickie came and stayed with Andrew so he could sleep.   I gave Sam a big hug at the curb and then cried all the way home in the too silent car as Charlie slept.  My life is usually, as my friend Rebecca describes it, me running around with my “hair on fire.”    It doesn’t leave me a lot of time to dwell- though the cold fear often wakes me up in the early morning hours when things always seem the grimmest.  There has not been a lot of mental anguish build up for me to this scan week because literally every hour has been filled, but driving home from the hospital this morning the silence was deafening. Though every scan result has potential life altering results, this one is a biggy and for the first time since right after Charlie was born and we were up at Children’s LA. I’m not going to be there for it. I’m not going to be holding Sam’s hand as he gets propofol for his bone marrow biopsy or help him drink the contrast for the CT on Friday by having a gatorade race with him.  Neil will be shouldering it all this go around.  I know he will make it fun for Sam. He is determined to do so.  I’ve already gotten five calls from Children’s Philadelphia this morning with instructions for the bone marrow biopsy, where to pick up the contrast for the CT, etc. So while he is doing his best to make it fun, he’s also got a lot of “to dos.”    They got into the Ronald McDonald House tonight and tomorrow night which we thought might be good for this go around since they have very early appointments. We were lucky to get in I guess, they had a last minute cancellation.
Sam brought the new Tiki and Ronde Barber book that I’d pre-ordered from Amazon. He’s been staying up reading it at night. It’s exciting to see him really into a book. They are pretty exciting books, every chapter I’m dying to see what happens in the next game, if they make it to the playoffs etc.  Sam also brought some Madlibs (which won’t be the same without someone else to make butt jokes with but come to think of it, Neil is pretty good at that ;-)) and some other things to do on the plane.
The silence here didn’t last long because Charlie woke up and wanted to put on the Captain America costume with the Batman headband (actually the belt to the Batman costume) and the Spiderman power glove. He picked Rubios for his Birthday dinner last night and then we went out to Extraordinary Desserts and the boys had triple chocolate mousse cake. They were up bouncing off the ceiling until about 11. Charlie says he had “another birthday” yesterday and I heard him telling Andrew as they were fighting over something downstairs “it’s not your birthday.” It was funny. I took him to preschool earlier this week and he said he “hated it” and is not going to go, though while there he went down the slide 50 times and seemed to be having a grand time. He sang a little bit of “Eye of the Tiger” for Tina, one of the directors.
Andy’s last basketball game is on Friday and he has a few birthday parties coming up. As the mayor, he has a lot of social obligations ;-).   He’ll have tennis camp next week and then has promised that he’ll be nice to Charlie while I’m gone and Grandma Joan and Uncle Tom and Dad are here with him.  That will be a miracle as tormenting Charlie is one of his favorite pasttimes.
I get so anxious when I’m not with Sam and he’s at the hospital, any hospital.  But then when I’m with him at the hospital and Andy and Charlie are at home I’m anxious about them as well.  I’ll be ready for September when we are all back in the same house. I’m glad Neil and Sam are coming back from a few days in between. Sam said he wants to go golfing when he gets back ( I know Vickie B,  we belong in Kicking and Screaming movie as the crazy sports family).
Please think good thoughts and pray for good scans for Sam this week.
Breaking news:
Neil just called and they’ve landed. He said they were sitting behind a 4th grade teacher and he and Sam were working on spelling and grammar and the teacher said Sam is very smart. The bad news is that Neil just got a phone call and insurance is balking -we’ve been working on insurance approval for the past three weeks so nice to know the problem is cropping up as they’ve landed. Argh. Getting on the phone to insurance now.
Margot
Topics: Progress Reports | 13 Comments »
“I Just Look That Wave in the Eye and Say ‘Hey Bud, Let’s party.” – Jeff Spicoli
By Margot | August 10, 2009
- Sam, Andy and Joe Surfer Dudes
- All three standing up
- Charlie’s version
Â
Sam received a surf lesson for two from Joe for his birthday.  We added Andy and he and Joe and Andy took the lesson on Friday and they had the best time. With 15 minutes to go in the hour and a half lesson I was warming up a shivering blue Sam and he said, ” How many more hours do I have?” They all three got up several times and rode all the way in. The picture where Andy’s is falling down doesn’t do him justice because in his own words, “Dude I rocked about a million waves.”  Joe got into the car after they all got their wet suits on and we were on our way to the beach and said, “Ok guys, we all have to say ‘Dude’ a lot because we are surfer guys.”  It was funny.   After the lesson all of the boys said, “Can we do this again next week?”
Sam and Neil are on their way to Philadelphia for scans and bone marrow biopsy on Wednesday.  They moved back the date of the actual Ultratrace infusion by a couple of days but otherwise everything is on track. We are nervous waiting this long for the treatment but so far things seem under control.  Sam’s LDH was 551 on Thursday. His VMA went up last week and HVA went down. 31 and 29. Added together they are the same as the week before but the numbers switched themselves around.  We spent last weekend in the hospital -Neil’s birthday pic above and our anniversary.   We toasted our anniversary in the hospital and Neil wrote his very beautiful post - that just floored me- after I went home from the hospital.    Sam and Andy had each picked Neil out a present from Sports Chalet for his birthday. Charlie picked out the soccer cake in the picture above. Andy picked out weights -after he picked a whole exercise system that I said was out of our price range- and Sam picked out lacrosse sticks that we put to good use in the hospital halls in a lacrosse/handball game Sam and Andy made up. We all gave him a new tennis racket.   We were out by Monday. Joe and Mimi and Maureen came to visit and he was in good spirits.Â
We went up top to Children’s LA on Tuesday to sign all of the consents for the Ultratrace trial.  Sam had to sign his own consent this time around. He was joking around with me when I explained it to him the night before and he said, “I’m going to sign a big “No Way.”   He signed his name though and I think he’s most worried that he’ll have to stay by himself. Dr. Villablanca was really good about explaining things to him. In the car he said, “Why can’t we do chemo?”    He did tennis and basketball this week and we swam and swam and swam. Friday he developed a rash that started bothering his feet. He played in his basketball game on Saturday and played the whole game but was pretty worn out and his feet were hurting him. His team lost but they haven’t won a game yet. Joe said it was good he missed last week’s game against Joe’s team because “he missed the horror.”   His feet are still bothering him today but it seems to be getting better. Â
Andy is good. Currently has ketchup and frozen yogurt all over his Lakers jersey from dinner.   His reading teacher said he is reading really well. He was great again in his basketball game Friday night and is looking forward to soccer.
Yesterday was Charlie’s birthday party. We had a pool party and about ten kids. Charlie’s two best three year old buddies Jett and Trevor came and he was very happy. In the middle of opening his presents he said, “This is the best birthday I ever had.”   He was so cute.  His actual birthday is Tuesday.   He was doing air guitar tonight at the frozen yogurt place and cracking us all up.
I’ll post again on his actual birthday.
Margot
Topics: Progress Reports | 6 Comments »
A Guest Post
By Margot | August 2, 2009
Topics: Progress Reports | 28 Comments »
Summer
By Margot | July 29, 2009
This week has finally felt like summer for all of us. Sam’s leg pain seems to have dissapeared. He went to basketball practice on Monday night, did a waterballoon fight on Sunday and did tennis yesterday.  All of this has been interspersed with a lot of swimming.   Counts seem to be holding up all right. ANC was 900 on Monday morning.  I gave Sam his nuelasta shot today so if we can make it a few more days without bouncing back in, we should stay out of the hospital until we go to Philadelphia – crossing fingers, knocking wood. LDH was over 1000 on Monday and VMA/HVA last week was in the 40’s and 50’s -where it’s been hanging for the last couple of weeks. Hopefully it will drop this week some. We don’t have Monday’s back yet. Dr. Modak did call last week and confirmed that the San Diego scan was an improvement over the MSKCC scan and that there was a response to the TCV.   So good news on that front – though it was still a lot of disease.
Sam is very excited to play in his basketball game on Saturday. He did so well in practice. He just amazes me. I was worried how the kids would react because he hasn’t been to practice or a game in three weeks and as soon as he walked in the gym, his coaches and his whole team yelled out, “Sam!” It made him smile.  He did well in the scrimmage and made three baskets. I think that made his summer.
We have figured out our Philadelphia plans. Neil and Sam will fly out together for two short trips and I will stay with Charlie and Andy and then I’ll meet them out there and Neil will fly back to be with the boys. Then Sam and I will stay from the 21st through the 31st and then fly back. We can do the stem cell infusion at Childrens LA so Sam will get to go to his first day of school and will not have to be on an airplane that day.  I cannot thank the Starks enough for their help with airline miles, it is such a huge huge help. Charlie and Andy are going to stay in San Diego because we just couldn’t figure the logistics of getting them out there and back for a few days at a time. The longest time we will be there will be the time Sam is in isolation and no one under 18 is allowed in. So the boys will stay here with their friends and camps and Neil and I will switch off in Philadelphia. We’ll take Sam to some Philly’s games and visit with people and show him a good time.
I am sometimes overwhelmed at how earnest he is – how hard he tries at everything. I know he’s not superhuman and he’s not perfect by any means but for all he puts up with, just to even keep up with the other kids at sports and school is a mean feat.  The boys started a reading class at UCSD and Sam refused to go initially. It took yelling, cajoling, bribing just to get him to walk through the door. He was in tears when he walked in. I’d promised I’d stay with him so I sat in the row behind him. Once he sat down though the teacher was great and very engaging and he really liked it.  He said he doesn’t want to miss any of the classes.  The chapter in the book they were reading was about doing something hard and not giving up and the kids had to have partners to talk about a time when they had to do something hard and how they handled it. Since we were late the teacher was Sam’s partner so he said, Sam, “Has there ever been anything hard that you had to do?”   It was sort of a funny question given Sam’s summer so far. Sam said, “Well, I have to go to the hospital a lot.”  The teacher asked, “How do you handle that?” He said, “My Mom and Dad help me and my friends and my brothers come to visit me.” Â
Andy is doing well. He’s been tearing it up on the basketball court. His reading class is on Sunday after Sam’s. I promised Andy I’d stay with him as well. It was two hours long which is sort of long for him. He dropped his pencil and his book about fifty times and kept scooching around in his chair.  If there was a record for fidgeting he would get it. The teacher said he read really well though. When I asked him how he liked it he said accusingly, “no lunch and no recess, Mom.”
Charlie is still dressing up in his soccer uniform daily. He’s really swimming well and has turned the corner on swimming in a big way this summer. He’s wearing big boy underwear today so we’re crossing our fingers on how that goes. He told me, “Mom, I’ll put them on if you’ll stop asking me.” How’s that for a hint on how much you’ve been nagging your child about something?
Saturday is Neil and my 11th year anniversary and Sunday is Neil’s birthday. Then next Saturday we are having Charlie’s 3rd birthday party. So for the next week out of the hospital (please) we are going to be living large.
Margot
Topics: Progress Reports | 10 Comments »
Hangin’ with Sam
By Margot | July 22, 2009
Sam and Andy playing Wii -taken on my cell
We are on day three of Topo/Cytox. So far not too many ill effects. Neil is bringing Sam in around 7:30 in the morning and I’ve been coming in around 9:15 after dropping off Andy and then Neil goes to work. After the first day getting everything started and leaving at 5:30, yesterday we got at out of here at 3pm and today are shooting for 2:30. Monday we did some homework and played Monopoly and games but things have deteriorated from there as we brought the Wii the last couple of days. Yesterday Mac and Grant came and played. Lisa brought cupcakes and smiles and I ran out and got some work done for an hour or so.  Today Sam is playing Wii with eight year old Esteban, the brother of the little boy in the bed next to us. It cracks me up how quickly boys bond over video games. They are yelling, “Aw, you got me!” and “That guy has a really good super move.” He and I had an agreement that he would do some homework type stuff with me at 11 but he’s having so much fun I don’t have the heart. So we’ll have to chalk up today to a total brain drain. The giggle is worth it. Yesterday was funny because Sam was playing Lego Batman and called up Andrew at home and they had this long conversation about how to beat the level.   You would think Andrew was talking him through brain surgery. I cracked up. Sam got deaccessed yesterday so he could do tennis and go swimming. He had the best time at his tennis lesson and it’s good because he doesn’t have to run or anything. Coach Joe just lets him hit and it’s not too stenuous.   Then Andrew had basketball practice (it was very hot) and afterwards we all went swimming. Andrew’s day yesterday was soccer camp from 9-1, tennis from 4-5, basketball from 5-6 and then swimming.   What kind of crazy overscheduling mother does he have?  Luckily he has lots of energy.  Charlie has been dressing up in total soccer uniforms every day because that is what Andy’s wearing for camp. It’s the cutest thing. He fits in Sam’s old four year old jersey and the cleats Sam and Andy wore at 4.  Andy is coming up after soccer to visit with Sam. Today Sam wants to get deaccessed again today for basketball practice but I’m not sure what to do about that.  Now that we have made the big decision on treatment we still have all the little paper cut type decisions like these that keep me up at night along with the elephant in the room. You’ll see after reading below why the basketball decision today particularly stings.  Travel decisions are on hold because Diane at CHOP is working on arranging some things at CHLA -maybe stem cell infusion there. So, we’ll see what happens on that front.
VMA/HVA today was back up to 51 HVA and 43 (I think) VMA. Sam told Neil that his leg hurt this morning in the cafeteria and he said it hurt last night. This is not good news the third day into chemo. In the past when we’ve started chemo any pain has gone away. Now, three days in, Sam is starting to have leg pain. He hasn’t mentioned to me at all and is happy here playing so it’s not debilitating pain. We are worried that we are going to race the disease to get to the Ultratrace treatment. We have until the infusion on August 25th. That’s five weeks. The VMA/HVA numbers are from last Friday which would have been our chemo week had we stayed on a three week schedule and not been in Philly.  So if this chemo works they may drop again and we’ll be ok.    We may be ok anyway if the Ultratrace is the ticket.   Racing hearts and worried heads here in the clinic today. But I won’t be doctor neg. Sam is here laughing next to me and he deserves all our hope and determination. Â
Margot
Topics: Progress Reports | 13 Comments »
CHOP/Philly/Home/The Plan
By Margot | July 17, 2009
We are home now. Got home last night around 8. We had a good meeting with Dr. Maris and Diane Baniewicz and left with a lot of hope for the new trials just started and some things around the corner that we will aim for.  We are going to do the Ultratrace MIBG treatment. We are lucky that there is a slot for Sam on this trial. It is a formulation of MIBG that as I understand it, ensures that every MIBG molecule delivered is radioactive -giving much more bang for the buck. The frist date for the actual infusion of the isotope is on August 26th. There is a lot of workup before then though. I’ll post our actual schedule below. We got to meet Caryn Franca, mom to Nick http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/francafamily who we’ve emailed back and forth with quite a bit. She came and sat with us in the waiting room and showed us the food court and helped the boys pick out their lunch which was very helpful. Thanks Caryn and so great to meet you. Nick was getting his port removed. He has just finished the Ultratrace and had a very good scan. Yeah Nick! We didn’t get to meet Nick but hopefully in the sometime in August.
We still don’t have an actual read of the San Diego scan as Dr. Modak couldn’t see much and wanted his team to digitize it so he could read it better. Until then he’s calling it stable.  Hard to compare scans from different institutions. From our eyes there was improvement and that may be as official as we get unless we hear some more from Dr. Modak. He thought MIBG was a good next step as well. Sam’s numbers from today’s blood draw: LDH 626 White: 8.4 Platelets 148, HM 10.5. So he’s in good shape just in time to start chemo on Monday morning. We will have IV Topo/Cytox for five days next week. We’ll do it outpatient this time and a lower dose than what he just had since it is not to get to 3F8’s but a bridge to the MIBG treatment. For those of you considering the treatment or anyone curious to know. Here is what Sam’s summer schedule looks like:
July 20-24 IV Topo/Cytox as an outpatient with lots of hydration two hours prior and three post making for a long day and hopefully a protected bladder.
August 12th: Arrive in Philadelphia
August 13th and 14th: bone marrows, biopsys, scans and lab consent done by 3pm on the 14th
Return to CHOP for dosimetry scans approx 12noon on August 19th, 20th and 21st
Return to CHOP 8/25 no later than 2pm for admission
8/26 foley catheter placement with anesthesia
Ultratrace infusion approx. 2pm
Discharged maybe August 29th or 30th
Follow up MIBG scan on August 31st
Stem cell infusion at CHOP on September 9th
Plan on leaving Philadelphia area on September 10th or so.
So, what are you doing on your summer vacation?
Though Sam has every right to be bitter, he’s not and I’m not going to be bitter because I don’t have any right to be. I’m so thankful that we have a shot at this. That we have a chance and a hope to hold on to. That we have so many people that help us out and that love Sam. On the very start of our trip, our plane to Philadelphia left San Diego at 6:30 in the morning. We wrongly thought that a flight that early would mean an empty airport so we didn’t leave a lot of extra time. Our first sign that things were going to snag was the woman at the curbside check in who was moving in slow motion to begin with. As she checked our bags and boarding passes she said that the Andrew’s ticket wasn’t showing up (Neil had tried to check in online but the USAir site wouldn’t let him) and that we would have to go upstairs to the ticket counter and sort it out. She still hadn’t checked all of the bags so we decided I would take the kids upstairs and Neil would finish with Slo Mo downstairs. As I walked inside and looked up the escalator to the second floor I saw a huge winding security line. San Diego is a very small airport serving a large city and anyone who travels a lot will tell you it has the worst security lines in the country -we didn’t think it would be the case that early but apparently USAir has about 15 flights leaving San Diego at 6:30. The first thing I thought was “We are going to miss our flight.” Then I started to spiral into all of the complications that would go along with that and started to panic. I had to take the boys to the bathroom before getting to the counter because Andrew was dancing and Neil caught up with us and started talking to the woman at the counter. The first thing out of her mouth was “You are going to miss your flight” and Neil’s reply was, “We can’t miss our flight. We are not going to miss it.” After she heard our story from Neil she told him to go through first class security line – still very long. We waited a few minutes and Neil went up to the head security lady and told her we had to get our plane. A nasty lady said, “We ALL have 6:30 flights and we ALL have to catch our planes.” But then the security lady said we could go next and people started moving over for us and we got through the ID check with the slowest moving TSA guy I’ve ever seen – I swear it was like everyone at the airport had slow pills for breakfast- then we frantically got all the kids shoes off, DVD players out, work laptop out and shoved everything through the scanner and as I was racing to throw everything back together and Neil was taking off Sam’s new belt that beeped a woman said, “Is this your laptop?’ “Yes,” I said, thinking she was going to move it and then she did the most wonderful thing. She put it in it’s case and then put all three of the children’s shoes on and I started to cry as I was throwing things together. She and her husband yelled “Go Go Go!” and the five of us literally ran to catch our plane. The gate area was totally empty and we made it right before they shut the doors. And that woman is why I will not let myself be bitter. Because our neighbor Billy woke up at 5am to take us to the airport so we wouldn’t have to park. Because the Londons who lost their own beautiful daughter Penelope two years ago to NB are kind enough to throw Sam a birthday party with a cake and give him a camera that he hasn’t put down since he got it. Because our friends take our other two boys and show them fun when they need it. Because Uncle Matt takes off work to help us out and because so many people friends, family, doctors, nurses and strangers come out of the woodwork to help us. Reading Vickie’s wonderful and sad post today reminded me that I wanted to write about our airport helper and all of our helpers. http://erinbuenger.blogspot.com/
It will be quite a logistical feat to organize the treatment from the exact opposite end of the country but we will do it whether we just stay there the whole time, stay in Michigan some of the time, send the kids to NM, bring everyone for part of the time, all of the time or none of the time remains to be seen.
The boys liked Philly by the way, though the hotel we pricelined had a “bad pool.” It was only 3 and a half feet all the way across. They still had fun in it playing Marco Polo. Sam took pictures of the Ben Franklin bridge and we ate breakfast at the Reading St. Market at a Dutch Amish place that was awesome. We walked down to Independence Mall to see The Liberty Bell, The Declaration of Independence and the very first Supreme Court. It was very neat though the implications were pretty lost on the boys, I told them they’d be impressed once they started studying it in school. Sam took pictures of everything. He loves being a photographer! For such a sporty guy he has a real artistic side to him. I think he took a picture of every statue and sign there was ;-).
Sorry for the long post. More soon.
Margot
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