- Name: Ryan
- Location: Athens, Ga, United States
Our son Ryan was diagnosed with stage 4 Neuroblastoma in 2004. In 2007, my wife Missy was diagnosed with stage 2 triple negative breast cancer. On July 8th, 2009, Missy lost her battle to this horrible disease. 2 days later, on July 10th, Ryan also lost his. Together forever, they both watch over our family now from the heavens above.
Below is our families journey through Ryan's treatments, along with the joy and laughter we tried to instill into our daily lives. Those days helped us all cope with the pain and suffering that comes with cancer and it's deadly treatments. Both Missy and Ryan endured high doses of chemo, radiation and surgeries. Over 150 nights spent in the hospital and many, many more days. More transfusions than I could count. Yet both Missy and Ryan took on each day with a positive attitude and warm smile for all their friends. We miss them terribly. They will always be a shining light in our lives.
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Thursday, October 16, 2008
We finally hit the town!
We made it down to Times Square last night. OMG, I am officially old! We braved the subway and walked around a bit, grabbed a bite to eat, and headed home. We had to be at Sloan this morning at 9:30 for a brain MRI (which was late), the last of the flow study scan (also late) and then ran upstairs real quick to get deaccessed. Ha! Ha! Joke's on us, I guess. We left around 5:00! Ryan was pretty mad about it all. We were supposed to meet his pilot buddy, Jon, for lunch, but had to cancel. We found out he had to get platelets before he could be registered for the study. The platelets only took about an hour, but he started breaking out in hives about the time the platelets were done. He got two IV meds to bring that around. Our nurse, Terri, was wonderful and patient with him. He was not a happy camper! I spent the next hour or so at the drug store around the corner from the Ronald McDonald house trying to get prescriptions filled for us. Dr. George, Dr. Rapkin, and Dr. O'Regan have all been so great (and Erika and Liz) helping us get prescriptions filled so our insurance would pay for them. I have a terrible cough still, but hopefully this new medicine will help even more. Ryan has to start taking the dreaded SSKI every day while on the study. He is so great about it, and doesn't complain a bit. It is basically iodine to protect his thyroid from the radiation. Yucch!!! He also has to start taking a medicine to help his thyroid function properly. It is in pill form, so that shouldn't be a big deal. key word here is "shouldn't". We are getting excited about Heidi and Will getting here on Saturday. We are thinking about going ice skating at Rockefeller Center on Sunday. Ryan doesn't have to be back at Sloan until Tuesday at 1:00 so we are going to pack in as much fun as we can. The picture is from last night. I don't know if you can see my mysterious black eye or not. It appeared after my massage at family camp on Saturday. Just something else in my back-pack! It only looks bad, it doesn't hurt a bit. Thanks for checking in on us and for your prayers and encouragement. Love, Les, Missy, Heidi, Will, and SuperRyan
# posted by Ryan @ 10/16/2008 07:29:00 PM
