Tonight's picture was taken in September of 2008. We took Mattie to New York City to be evaluated by an oncologist and surgeon there and to see whether he could qualify for an experimental study. Within the clinic stood this artistically huge apple, to remind us we were in "the big apple." Despite my love for NY, I have NO LOVE for this institution. I will never forget the total disregard they have for children and their families. Instead, I feel like they viewed us as an insignificant number and doled out diagnoses and prognoses without understanding that their words are crushing. I can still recall one doctor told us that no one survives multi-focal osteosarcoma (what Mattie had) and the other said, forget about treatment and move to end of life care (without even trying a standard of care or experimental treatment). Though the outcome was the same, Mattie did die, at least I know that we did everything humanly possible to treat Mattie's cancer. That is the psychosocial aspect of care that went missing at this institution, the ramification of medical decisions on those of us left behind (bereaved parents).
Quote of the day: Today's coronavirus update from Johns Hopkins.
- Number of people diagnosed with the virus: 43,064,100
- Number of people who died from the virus: 689,898
Today was another fun day on the Farm. Peter and I feel like there is just no peace here. I got up at 6am again and at 7:30am, the person installing a new door arrived. He arrived 90 minutes early. Thank goodness I was up and dressed. But I know how this works, which is why I get up at the crack of dawn! The door installation took about 4 hours. We had no idea we even needed a new door, until we had a flood in the basement from Hurricane Ida. In fact, the door was in such bad shape that I could put my hand through the side of it. Just ridiculous and it was also a security concern. Finally we have a full fledged outside door and we have taken every precaution necessary to make it water proof. We shall see. In the midst of the door installation, we had someone over to fix broken sprinkler heads, as well as someone to treat for mosquitoes. Mosquitoes out here are fierce and I like this company because they use a chrysanthemum derivative that is not toxic for animals like Sunny.
Meanwhile speaking of Sunny, I see NO improvement in his condition. He still refuses to put his leg down and use it. Yet he wants to go for a walk in a sling. I assure you both of our backs are killing us from walking with Sunny hunched over in a sling. He is dead weight and likes to walk under bushes and in tight places, making it impossible to keep up. I am frustrated and exhausted and honestly his leg and recovery are the last thing I needed right now. I can see this is going to be a more challenging rehab than his first surgery and next week he gets examined by the surgeon. I am hoping he makes more progress this week, because I am not sure how much more I can carry him around.
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