So this is how the rest of that unfolded...
*
Richard was going to be allowed to hang out in his bed until the patient arrived on his flight to check into the hospital.
*
Dad was going to be able to get Richard at about 2:30pm ish, but would have to carry all the stuff without my help which was probably going to be a couple loads to the van, but whatever.
*
I wanted to save my dad needing to drive from his place to the hospital twice (once for moving Richard to the Cancer Lodge and once to take me to spend the night with Richard). I knew my dad would be MORE than willing to do it, but if I could save him the extra drive, I would.
*
My sister Kim (best sister in the world, in case you didn't know), and her beau, Jared came out to my place to get the boys so that I could head out early to go with Dad to the hospital. THANK YOU, KIM! THANK YOU, JARED for playing with the boys downstairs with the Rescue Heroes while Kim and I loaded the bags, carseats, and bikes!
*
I headed to my dad's keeping in contact with he and Richard regarding my ETA which we were hoping would get me to the hospital with Dad at about 3:30pm.
*
Long story short.... 1 hour and 45 minutes due to an absolutely flawless drive until I hit the tunnel where the counterflow lane is. YIKES. I learned a very hard lesson today. However, I know what I'll do next time to get around that if I'm heading out against rush hour again.
*
We got to Richard after he had only had to spend about 30 minutes in the lounge area. Not too bad. Dad felt pretty badly though, and I think he wished he had come out and not waited for me. Richard, however, was happy he waited because it meant he would see me just that much sooner! :) Awwwwww.
THANK YOU, DAD for doing everything you've been doing to help and for taking Richard's laundry again.
So, I am sitting here with Richard in our room at the Cancer Lodge for the night. He's here for a week or maybe less. Who knows, right?
Seriously. Nobody #$%#*!@#$@ knows.
Nobody.
He was very excited to go to A&W tonight for a Mama Burger. (normally, he's a Wendy's guy, but he had a hankering). The burger and fries together (regarding quantity) was more than he'd eaten in about 3 weeks total. So far, it seems to be staying down.
Right now, Richard's talking to Dexter on the phone (he and AJ are at my mom's).
THANK YOU, MOM for taking the boys overnight!
When we checked in at the lodge, they asked for a list of prescription drugs that Richard is on, so Richard gave them his prescription list that he was going to need me to go pick up. That way, they could just photocopy that list. Instead, the lady offered to fax it to one of the local pharmacies that delivers. I swear to you. I am NOT kidding at all. The prescription order was brought to Richard's room in about 15 minutes.
Wow!
Wednesday
That was my first day back to work. So far, so good! A great class! I think I'm in for a good year. I have about 9 or so kids from last year, so it was really nice to see some familiar faces.
A big THANK YOU to Auntie Kim for taking the boys.
On my way home, Kim graciously allowed me the time to go to the gym! And when I headed to my job-share-partner-and-friend Andrea's house to tell her about the first full day with the kids, she handed over a whole slew of Rescue Heroes things for AJ and Dexter.
Thursday
I had contemplated taking the boys to visit Richard this evening, but he was so sure that I was going to bring him home this weekend, it seemed futile.
This day started with Makenna getting dropped off at around 7am on Jen's way to work, as I would be taking AJ and Makenna off to their first day of their last year of preschool. They are the oldest kids in the class this year! This is AJ's third year of preschool! Whoa!
Here's the funny part of the preschool excursion.
The preschool switched classrooms again. So, Makenna and AJ were entering the new classroom for the first time. They were excited and looking all around at the new atmosphere. Now when you couple this on top of the fact that AJ is THE BIGGEST dilly daddler at preschool when it comes to taking off his backpack, hoodie, and shoes, and putting on his indoor shoes, you can imagine how much I'm prompting him (well both of them.. but normally Makenna gets herself ready right away). Duly noted, AJ is ABLE to get himself all ready, it just takes him a long time while he people-watches.
So... the funny part... I'm saying things like, "AJ, Makenna... come on you two... you know the routine... backpacks off, indoor shoes out, take off your hoodies.... blah blah blah... nag nag nag." AJ hasn't even taken off his hoodie yet and I turn to check on Dexter.
He has taken off his hoodie, hung it up on a hook, taken off his shoes, placed them on the shoe-footprints, and is all ready to start preschool.
Awwww. I felt so badly. "No, Dexter. Sorry. You're not staying. You're coming to the gym with me. And Starbucks!" lol.
ps - Jen... I hope her hair is 'okay'. She didn't want a side pony. She wanted it in the back. I didn't know if I should just take some off the top or the whole front and top. Anyhow.. this is how she showed up for preschool.
Later that evening...
After some errands and having two very worn out kids after Dexter's nap, I was excited to let the boys have some fun time in the playroom before bed, while I got into my comfies and started to settle in. Soon, would be a nice bedtime of about 7:30pm, and I was going to start a sewing project!
But... No sooner had the boys and I got into our pj's, then about 5 or 10 minutes into playing, Dexter comes screaming up the stairs hysterically crying.
He looked something like this:
minus the brown hair (substitute blond spiky hair)
minus the goatee (substitute peach fuzz)
minus the stupid outfit (substitute cute jammies with snowboarders on them)
minus the giant ridges (substitute a twoonie sized raised ridged crazy purple and red freaky looking OMG right at the top of his nose between his eyes)
HUGS ensued.
AJ explained what happened. Dexter slipped and smashed his face into the edge of the coffee table.
By the time I packed a bag, AJ got into proper PJs, and I slipped back into my civilian clothing, Dexter had stopped crying and was excitedly asking "Where going? Where going?"
I hoped nothing was broken and there wasn't a concussion. I knew how to watch for a concussion, but the purple and redness and ridginess of the owie alarmed me enough that I wanted to be sure his nose wasn't broken.
It's 7pm at this point. Bedtime-ish. I was in for a great night.
I went to the clinic, sure that it was open until 8pm. Sure enough, we get there, and yes... it's open until 8pm!!! YAY!!! This wouldn't be such a bad night after all! But wait.... why is the door locked?
The sign on the door says something to the effect of 'due to high patient load and government cut backs' the clinic is closed.' In other words, there are patients in there, but in order to actually have the staff leave on time at 8pm, they've locked the doors one hour early.
No option left but to go to emergency.
Long story, short....
*
at the emergency until 10pm with both boys awake
*
considering what time it was, the boys did REALLY well
*
it was NOT a nightmare
*
the nice volunteer brought crayons and colouring sheets for the boys
*
the bad part was that the tv in the kids' waiting area wasn't on Treehouse (the innocent child's channel). It was tuned into "Family Guy", which, although humourous, is not something I would allow my kids to watch. We stayed out of view anyhow, at the little tables and chairs.
The adorable part of the evening?
When we were finally called in (only to wait for another 20 minutes at a hospital bed - sooo kid friendly - NOT), Dexter walks in the curtained room to see the hospital bed and the wall full of all sorts of dials and ear checkers and arm cuffs and such. He says,
"Daddy bunna!" (Daddy's bed!)
I said, "Yes, it does look like Daddy's bed!"
He contined to search around the room and peak under the curtain searching for Daddy saying, "Where's Daddy? Daddy! Daddy? Where are yooooouuuuu?"
Awwwww.
When we finally got out, and in the car, and on the road.
I cried. I just cried the whole way home. It was a long overdue sob. People must've thought I was nutso. It felt good though.
Everyone went to bed nicely.
And most importantly, Dexter seems to be fine. Nothing is broken. No blood in his ears (ewww). But I should expect his face to swell up and both eyes to go black.
Good thing he's at my mom's now! People can give her the dirty looks instead of me!
More Thank Yous
Thank you to Richard's Auntie Bev and Uncle Gerry for their beautiful anniversary card.
Thank you to Andrea's son, Cameron (and his sisters) for passing on all their awesome Rescue Heroes stuff to AJ and Dexter. They were VERY excited to have the cool boats and planes for their Rescue Heroes.
Thank you to my brother Paul, if he ended up having to watch the boys while waiting for Mom to get home from work. Or, thank you Paul for inevitably playing with the boys tonight or tomorrow!
Richard's still asleep. I'll try to remember to take a picture of him tonight or tomorrow so you can see how he's looking. Still looks cute to me.
I'm going to go fit in some cuddles now. Or maybe more... hee hee
*
Richard was going to be allowed to hang out in his bed until the patient arrived on his flight to check into the hospital.
*
Dad was going to be able to get Richard at about 2:30pm ish, but would have to carry all the stuff without my help which was probably going to be a couple loads to the van, but whatever.
*
I wanted to save my dad needing to drive from his place to the hospital twice (once for moving Richard to the Cancer Lodge and once to take me to spend the night with Richard). I knew my dad would be MORE than willing to do it, but if I could save him the extra drive, I would.
*
My sister Kim (best sister in the world, in case you didn't know), and her beau, Jared came out to my place to get the boys so that I could head out early to go with Dad to the hospital. THANK YOU, KIM! THANK YOU, JARED for playing with the boys downstairs with the Rescue Heroes while Kim and I loaded the bags, carseats, and bikes!
*
I headed to my dad's keeping in contact with he and Richard regarding my ETA which we were hoping would get me to the hospital with Dad at about 3:30pm.
*
Long story short.... 1 hour and 45 minutes due to an absolutely flawless drive until I hit the tunnel where the counterflow lane is. YIKES. I learned a very hard lesson today. However, I know what I'll do next time to get around that if I'm heading out against rush hour again.
*
We got to Richard after he had only had to spend about 30 minutes in the lounge area. Not too bad. Dad felt pretty badly though, and I think he wished he had come out and not waited for me. Richard, however, was happy he waited because it meant he would see me just that much sooner! :) Awwwwww.
THANK YOU, DAD for doing everything you've been doing to help and for taking Richard's laundry again.
So, I am sitting here with Richard in our room at the Cancer Lodge for the night. He's here for a week or maybe less. Who knows, right?
Seriously. Nobody #$%#*!@#$@ knows.
Nobody.
He was very excited to go to A&W tonight for a Mama Burger. (normally, he's a Wendy's guy, but he had a hankering). The burger and fries together (regarding quantity) was more than he'd eaten in about 3 weeks total. So far, it seems to be staying down.
Right now, Richard's talking to Dexter on the phone (he and AJ are at my mom's).
THANK YOU, MOM for taking the boys overnight!
When we checked in at the lodge, they asked for a list of prescription drugs that Richard is on, so Richard gave them his prescription list that he was going to need me to go pick up. That way, they could just photocopy that list. Instead, the lady offered to fax it to one of the local pharmacies that delivers. I swear to you. I am NOT kidding at all. The prescription order was brought to Richard's room in about 15 minutes.
Wow!
Wednesday
That was my first day back to work. So far, so good! A great class! I think I'm in for a good year. I have about 9 or so kids from last year, so it was really nice to see some familiar faces.
A big THANK YOU to Auntie Kim for taking the boys.
On my way home, Kim graciously allowed me the time to go to the gym! And when I headed to my job-share-partner-and-friend Andrea's house to tell her about the first full day with the kids, she handed over a whole slew of Rescue Heroes things for AJ and Dexter.
Thursday
I had contemplated taking the boys to visit Richard this evening, but he was so sure that I was going to bring him home this weekend, it seemed futile.
This day started with Makenna getting dropped off at around 7am on Jen's way to work, as I would be taking AJ and Makenna off to their first day of their last year of preschool. They are the oldest kids in the class this year! This is AJ's third year of preschool! Whoa!
Here's the funny part of the preschool excursion.
The preschool switched classrooms again. So, Makenna and AJ were entering the new classroom for the first time. They were excited and looking all around at the new atmosphere. Now when you couple this on top of the fact that AJ is THE BIGGEST dilly daddler at preschool when it comes to taking off his backpack, hoodie, and shoes, and putting on his indoor shoes, you can imagine how much I'm prompting him (well both of them.. but normally Makenna gets herself ready right away). Duly noted, AJ is ABLE to get himself all ready, it just takes him a long time while he people-watches.
So... the funny part... I'm saying things like, "AJ, Makenna... come on you two... you know the routine... backpacks off, indoor shoes out, take off your hoodies.... blah blah blah... nag nag nag." AJ hasn't even taken off his hoodie yet and I turn to check on Dexter.
He has taken off his hoodie, hung it up on a hook, taken off his shoes, placed them on the shoe-footprints, and is all ready to start preschool.
Awwww. I felt so badly. "No, Dexter. Sorry. You're not staying. You're coming to the gym with me. And Starbucks!" lol.
ps - Jen... I hope her hair is 'okay'. She didn't want a side pony. She wanted it in the back. I didn't know if I should just take some off the top or the whole front and top. Anyhow.. this is how she showed up for preschool.
Later that evening...
After some errands and having two very worn out kids after Dexter's nap, I was excited to let the boys have some fun time in the playroom before bed, while I got into my comfies and started to settle in. Soon, would be a nice bedtime of about 7:30pm, and I was going to start a sewing project!
But... No sooner had the boys and I got into our pj's, then about 5 or 10 minutes into playing, Dexter comes screaming up the stairs hysterically crying.
He looked something like this:
minus the brown hair (substitute blond spiky hair)minus the goatee (substitute peach fuzz)
minus the stupid outfit (substitute cute jammies with snowboarders on them)
minus the giant ridges (substitute a twoonie sized raised ridged crazy purple and red freaky looking OMG right at the top of his nose between his eyes)
HUGS ensued.
AJ explained what happened. Dexter slipped and smashed his face into the edge of the coffee table.
By the time I packed a bag, AJ got into proper PJs, and I slipped back into my civilian clothing, Dexter had stopped crying and was excitedly asking "Where going? Where going?"
I hoped nothing was broken and there wasn't a concussion. I knew how to watch for a concussion, but the purple and redness and ridginess of the owie alarmed me enough that I wanted to be sure his nose wasn't broken.
It's 7pm at this point. Bedtime-ish. I was in for a great night.
I went to the clinic, sure that it was open until 8pm. Sure enough, we get there, and yes... it's open until 8pm!!! YAY!!! This wouldn't be such a bad night after all! But wait.... why is the door locked?
The sign on the door says something to the effect of 'due to high patient load and government cut backs' the clinic is closed.' In other words, there are patients in there, but in order to actually have the staff leave on time at 8pm, they've locked the doors one hour early.
No option left but to go to emergency.
Long story, short....
*
at the emergency until 10pm with both boys awake
*
considering what time it was, the boys did REALLY well
*
it was NOT a nightmare
*
the nice volunteer brought crayons and colouring sheets for the boys
*
the bad part was that the tv in the kids' waiting area wasn't on Treehouse (the innocent child's channel). It was tuned into "Family Guy", which, although humourous, is not something I would allow my kids to watch. We stayed out of view anyhow, at the little tables and chairs.
The adorable part of the evening?
When we were finally called in (only to wait for another 20 minutes at a hospital bed - sooo kid friendly - NOT), Dexter walks in the curtained room to see the hospital bed and the wall full of all sorts of dials and ear checkers and arm cuffs and such. He says,
"Daddy bunna!" (Daddy's bed!)
I said, "Yes, it does look like Daddy's bed!"
He contined to search around the room and peak under the curtain searching for Daddy saying, "Where's Daddy? Daddy! Daddy? Where are yooooouuuuu?"
Awwwww.
When we finally got out, and in the car, and on the road.
I cried. I just cried the whole way home. It was a long overdue sob. People must've thought I was nutso. It felt good though.
Everyone went to bed nicely.
And most importantly, Dexter seems to be fine. Nothing is broken. No blood in his ears (ewww). But I should expect his face to swell up and both eyes to go black.
Good thing he's at my mom's now! People can give her the dirty looks instead of me!
More Thank Yous
Thank you to Richard's Auntie Bev and Uncle Gerry for their beautiful anniversary card.
Thank you to Andrea's son, Cameron (and his sisters) for passing on all their awesome Rescue Heroes stuff to AJ and Dexter. They were VERY excited to have the cool boats and planes for their Rescue Heroes.
Thank you to my brother Paul, if he ended up having to watch the boys while waiting for Mom to get home from work. Or, thank you Paul for inevitably playing with the boys tonight or tomorrow!
Richard's still asleep. I'll try to remember to take a picture of him tonight or tomorrow so you can see how he's looking. Still looks cute to me.
I'm going to go fit in some cuddles now. Or maybe more... hee hee
6 comments:
Wow, all I can say is wow!!! So much going on that day. Glad to hear about Richard getting into the lodge. It was good seeing him on Wednesday. Guess I'll have change my visiting locale. Good stuff! Ryan
Sonja, what is needed to get a match for bone marrow. i mean what type of process is it/what do they look for in a match?? my thoughts and prayers are continually with you and yours. Give Richard a hug from his gaming family and let him know that we are all pulling for him and supporting however we can, even if its just well wishes from afar.
much love you you all,
stacy (Emotyn, from the EQ crew)
Well, you're kind of looking for your genetic twin. That's the best way I can explain it. They look for 12 indicators to match-up, called Human Leukocyte Antigens. One of which, I believe is blood type, but being the same blood type isn't absolutely necessary.
People who would like to be donors can go to blood.ca (Canadian Blood Services) and sign up in the bone marrow/stem cell section to get swabs sent to them in the mail to send in so you're on the list.
It's hard to find a match. If you go on the donor list, it's not like you're going to be a match for 8 people AND Richard and he's at the bottom of the list or something. It's lucky if they find a match.
I'm on the donor list now.
Richard hasn't any siblings, so a stranger is the only option.
Here's the wiki entry on HLA.
I'm sure you've googled it by this point, but for anyone else reading...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_leukocyte_antigen
I am going to get myself on the list in hopes that by some grace of God I would be able to help. You probably find that odd, but Richard has been a part of my gaming family for many years, even though many of those he has not been in the virtual world with us, he's has kept our home boards running. will be posting there as well to see if our family has a slim chance of helping yours.
stac~
Not weird at all. Many friends and family close and not-so-close have joined the registry in the same hopes!!!
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