Tonight's picture was taken in August of 2005. Mattie was visiting my parent's in Los Angeles. We took him to Griffith Park and he got to ride on a pony. Despite being strapped onto the horse, Peter went and walked along side Mattie to be safe. Rather ironic, as we thought about all the possible ways Mattie could get hurt or sick, but in our wildest imagination, childhood cancer never crossed our minds.
Quote of the day: One in every 3 people in the US will get shingles in their lifetime. No matter how healthy you feel, your immune system declines as you age, and that puts you at an increased risk for shingles. ~ Shingrix.com
Today I had the pleasure (and I am using that term lightly) of going to see one of my medical specialists. She doesn't know me very well as I typically only see her once a year. She doesn't have much of a personality usually, and comes off as more of a researcher scientist than a bedside physician. Today it was like she had taken her happy pills, as she was all chatty and interactive. I honestly wanted to say..... 'what happened to you?!' Given she was chatty, I wanted to reward this quality, so I listened and politely responded. However, I did not want to really hear the content she was talking about! She was going on non-stop about her children, the end of summer, the kids going back to school, children learning to drive and the list went on! I learned more about her from this one visit than I have in three years!
In her conversation, she was telling me that today was her son's half birthday. He turned 14 1/2. She said her son can't wait to turn 15 and 16, so he can drive. She told me that she said to her son 'of course you will turn 16 and be driving soon enough.' To me the response caught my attention, because this medical doctor made the assumption that children grow up and that nothing would really prevent this from happening year to year. Naturally childhood cancer is no where on her radar scope..... thankfully! But as I was listening, all I could think of is turning 16 isn't guaranteed for her son or any of our children.
I have to admit getting the shot hurts, as it is inter-muscular (like tetanus), but so far I don't have a fever, stomach or arm pain. So I hope that is a trend. In 2-6 months, we will need a booster shot and then hopefully we will be done. However, when the pharmacist saw Peter and me, he was confused as to why we needed this vaccine, as he deemed us to look younger than the onset age one typically gets the shot. He scored major points with me!
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