Tonight's photo was taken on March 18, 2009. That day we took Mattie to see the circus. It was his very first and last trip to the circus. We received a private box from Mattie's clinic to attend the show and Mattie loved the whole thing. Typically Mattie wasn't into NOISE, but the box seats made us all feel protected and more secure. We got Mattie all sorts of circus gear from a pretend sword to this light up elephant. In the audience was his friend in cancer, Brandon. During the intermission, we met up with Brandon and his family and Mattie truly had a great time that day. The sword and this elephant remain in Mattie's bedroom today.
Quote of the day: Today's Coronavirus update from the CDC.
- Total cases: 15,219
- Total deaths: 201
- Jurisdictions reporting cases: 54 (50 states, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and US Virgin Islands)
The status of things seem to be changing by the minute with the Coronavirus. As now the Canadian and Mexico borders have been closed, Americans have been advised not to travel internationally and states like California, New York, and Illinois have a 'stay at home' mandate. With grocery stores, pharmacies, hospitals, laundromats, and take out food all still being open.
We had two things going on today. Sunny had to go to the vet for his teeth cleaning, for biopsies of two skin growths and for xrays for his hips and back legs. Literally Peter dropped Sunny off at 8am. By noon, I called, and Sunny was still waiting to be sedated. As 4pm rolled around, I couldn't take it any longer and called back for an update. At which point, the vet spoke to me all with GOOD news. We were worried about his back legs and a lump we felt in his hip. Turns out to be muscular and with ten days on a muscle relaxant, he hopefully will be back to himself. Needless to say, he is loopy tonight on pain killers. I do think with this virus scare and staying at home, our minds went wild with what was wrong with Sunny.
The vet did not allow any pet owners into the office. Instead, we had to call ahead, wait outside and a tech came to pick up and deliver Sunny to us. They are taking Coronavirus very seriously, and I am good with that. While waiting for Sunny, we participated on a nationwide conference call with the American Psychosocial Oncology Society's pediatric special interest group. It was a good meeting, where we all got to hear how two clinicians are actually implementing the Psychosocial Standards of Care at their treatment sites (one in Seattle and the other in Cleveland). After the meeting, I wrote to each clinician to thank them for promoting the Standards and I am hoping to capture some information from them which I can share in an upcoming Foundation newsletter. However, it is wonderful to see our vision slowly being executed around the Country. The big take away today was programs which thought they offered outstanding and state of the art psychosocial care, realize now after using our newly created checklist (that helps programs assess and rate themselves on a likert scale, as to how well they are meeting each standard of care) that there is vast room for improvement. I appreciated the candor in the conference call and I commend programs who want to assess how they are doing with the hopes of providing the best possible care to their children and families.
In the midst of what we are all living with and the inordinate amount of stress we face each day, I thought posting these touching stories below, would provide some hope. That even under the worst of times, the human spirit finds a way to persevere.
Grandma gets 95th birthday surprise from safe distance amid coronavirus pandemic:
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Family/grandma-95th-birthday-surprise-safe-distance-amid-coronavirus/story?id=69682298
Granddaughter reveals engagement to quarantined grandfather in touching photos:
https://www.today.com/parents/granddaughter-reveals-engagement-quarantined-grandfather-touching-photos-t176153
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