Dark Days

To say that things have been rough lately is putting it mildly. If I didn't have work and dogs that need to go out, I'd probably stay in bed all day. I'm sorry for not returning emails and phone calls. I get them and really appreciate the thoughts. Please be patient with me as I try to figure this out.

Last week, I decided to send a note of complaint to NVCI about "a-hole" doctor. You can read about him if you go back to the blog for last September. My sister's in-laws are physicians and always encouraged me to write to the chief of staff when we had a legitimate complaint. In all these years, I only wrote once (besides last week) when there was an issue regarding a surgery Adrienne had when she was 10. I spoke with the chief medical officer for an hour, who it turns out, was a transplant doc at Moffit Cancer Center in Tampa for 16 years, so she was well acquainted with the type of medical issues Adrienne had. I'm so glad we talked. She's going to take some very direct action with the doctor, providing counseling and direction, and patients will now be able to decline to see a doctor when inpatient. She also wants me to participate in some patient advocacy and resident/fellowship training, which I'd like to do. I generally think there's a lack of patient input and understanding on the part of medical professionals and especially oncologists. I'm thinking of doing a talk titled "When you say this, we hear that."

I'm hoping that a few trips in the near future will help: Tucscon for a long weekend, a week in Cabo with the girls, and 2 weeks at the end of July in the Bay Area (some work, some vacation). I always love having visitors here too and we have plenty of room.

Unveiling Date - October 17, 2010

Adrienne's unveiling will be on October 17, 2010 at 2:30 in the afternoon. This is a short graveside service that includes reading of several psalms (1, 23, 24, 103), Mourners Kaddish, and the prayer "El Malei Rachamim. At the end of the ceremony, a cloth or shroud covering that has been placed on the headstone is removed. We'll probably do some sort of reception afterwards. I hope you can save the date if you're in the area.

Sisterhood

I haven't felt much like writing lately but wanted to post a couple of URLs for you to look at. This blog post (http://thatwoman.wordpress.com/2010/04/07/the-sisterhood/) was written by another mom that lost her son to Hodgkin's around the same time that Adrienne died. It says a lot of things better than I could. As she says:

We do not walk our path by choice the journey has been cruelly thrust upon us. We do not ever want to have fellow travelers join us the way is too long and painful and the journey never-ending.

Also, I hope you'll take a minute to view Janna's fundraising page for LLS (http://pages.teamintraining.org/sj/lavatri10/janna). She recently did a triathalon in Adrienne's honor. Make sure you read the post on December 17, 2009.