Just around the corner

Book 6 is done. The Madonna Rosa will be released July 1 through the SMASHWORDS Summer Sale event. It was conceived, written, edited, and published from this kitchen table at Ronald McDonald House and the cafeteria at Seattle Children's Hospital.

This week we undergo our last in-patient chemo therapy. Our remarkable little boy has grown into a young man here at Seattle Children's Hospital and RMCH. He has known almost nothing of America since he arrived last September except this bubble that extends from Ronald McDonald House on NE 40th Street across Sand Point Way to the hospital. Yet at the same time he has experienced the very best of what we all stand for. The commitment of the people who have cared for our boy these past eight months, the generosity of the volunteers here who have welcomed him into their hearts, and the friends we have made here at "the house" show just who we all can be when times are difficult.

I saw that Peter Chung who was here from Korea left me a comment a while back - January, actually. Time kinda flows in its own space right now, and I am sorry I did not see it earlier. Peter - I wish you and your family good health. They specifically selected Children's Hospital from among a list of hospitals around the world to care for their child. I enjoyed our talks in the kitchen.

The odd thing about living here is that people just disappear. You come back from clinic or an in-patient stay and things have changed. People are gone. New families are here. Children you have seen with feeding tubes, scars from heart transplants, bald heads from the effects of chemo - they have gone home to restart their lives. The reality is when you get the OK to go, you go.

That day is approaching for us. We hope to be home by July 4, but planning is at best precarious. So today the tasks are the same - scrub the bathroom for the weekly room check, mix the high-calorie shake in the morning to try and keep the weight up, blood draw at 10:00, monthly visit from the case worker. Our friends from Symmetra are fixing dinner. Just another day to keep our boy cold- and infection-free before this last chemo, fretting over every cough you hear, every sneeze, wondering when the person who just offered you their hand last washed them.

We found out that little "Dallas" who was moved to House B - the seclusion apartments - was just pronounced cancer free and will get to go home soon. What a joy! Another family who was on what they call comfort care also left. That makes number four since we have been here.

I want to go home.