St Jude – Weekend in Colorado

I had a few customers come into my work today asking how Summer was doing… Did she make it to Colorado???  Man!!! I am terrible…  I planted some videos and updates on Facebook after I raced out of town… But nothing on the blog.  I am terrible!!!

Thursday morning Summer had a speech appointment first thing.  We went to St. Jude only to find every parking spot taken!!!  I dropped Summer off at the front door and drove back to the parking garage.  I feel for other parents who have little kids and cannot “shortcut” the system as we do.  Even though I generally trust her to get to the door with little incident…  It’s always stuck around in my mind that she could fall on her way to the building with no chaperone.  I’ll definitely get that “Parent of the Year” award I have missed since the kids have grown up.

She does move slowly.  Even with dropping her off near the front door, parking the car back a 1/8 mile, and walking back to the entrance… I still catch up to her in the waiting room for speech.

After speech…  Summer headed to the activity room.  Imagine that?  Those resin stars are not going to craft themselves!!!  Later, we ran over to E Clinic so Summer could plead her case for getting off fluids for traveling.  Summer had every scenario going through her head… Lindsey might be tough… But sometimes the fill-in doctor was more “by the book” and might actually be tougher to convince.  Turns out that both were gone or occupied.  Katie was there and listened to Summer.  She then asked her some questions about what fluids she had already taken.  Fortunately, she was already through one of her 24-hour bags and was barely into the second bag.  (Her backpack still weighed a ton!)

Katie said that the second bag of fluids had not shown much change in Summer’s liver enzymes during the last cycle.  She was safe to stop taking it and have her port access removed till next week.

AWESOME!  Things were looking good!

After getting detached…  We headed back to the Teen Life / Activity room.  Summer got all of her crafts put away and covered up so they would not be tampered with over the weekend.  We then headed back across town to Ramblin Joe’s Coffee Shack for another Cafe Con Leche for me and a Huckleberry Frap thing for her.

I attempted to some laundry done and started bagging up some stuff to bring home.  This is how you know the end of treatment is in sight…  We are starting to unload the apartment!!!  Even with a carload of “stuff”… I still believe a moving van might be in order when the time comes to depart.

Dinner Thursday was provided by Dominos Pizza.  The last time we got pizzas… Summer yelled at me for getting something with vegetables.  This time, unlike every dinner provided by Target House, she was there with me to make sure I picked up something she would eat.  That’s a sign that she has absolutely no faith in my ability to acquire food.  After securing a Mushroom and Chicken pizza…  She ate one whole slice!  Glad she was so involved with the selection!!!  Then again…  It’s her journey… She can pick the pizza without me arguing!

All systems were a go for launch on Friday.  We are doing better than Elon and SpaceX!

The flight from Memphis International was 5:30 AM.  The drive says 15 minutes from Target House.  Summer and I agreed that leaving around 4:15 would be OK.  That meant setting the alarm for 4AM!!!  Yick.  Summer headed to bed around 8:30… I looked at her as she was heading to her room ask asked “You really think you can fall asleep this early?”.  She just shrugged and closed her door.

The alarm ringing that next morning was as crappy a feeling as I expected.  Traffic moved right along and I was able to pull up to the handicapped space at gate 2 in departures with little fuss.  I got out of the car and made sure Summer was safe to walk inside without me.  You could see the ticket counters for American and knew that was a safe distance for her to cover.  I gave her a hug and asked if she “had this?”.  She told me she did…  I watched her walk inside the terminal and pulled away. 

There was so much buildup to this trip to Colorado.  I know that Summer has gone back to Carbondale and spent many nights away from us and St. Jude over the past 11 months…  But this event was something different.  Independence or the first hint of life after treatment.  As I drove away… I was so overjoyed and happy for her that I had tears rolling down my face.  And then when I realized I was crying…  Gigantic tears lept from my tear ducts like nothing I could remember.  What an incredible moment this was!  I made a wrong turn leaving the airport because I was not paying attention…  But I still made it back to Target House to get a few more hours of sleep before heading back to Illinois.

I checked in with Summer before heading back to sleep… She was through security.   I could rest easy at this point.

Now… I travel quite a bit… So I should have questioned in my head where Summer was going to connect her flights from Memphis and Colorado Springs.  I never did.  In my pollyanna mind, I just assumed it was a magically direct flight.  It wasn’t.  Summer texted me around 8 AM to tell me that the Dallas Airport sucks!  Ha!  I think it stinks even when I am at my most capable!  I can’t imagine landing there in her current condition and making the tram connections to the next terminal and gate.  Summer told me that her next flight was delayed an hour for “maintenance”… So she was upset that she got a crappy airport Duncan when she found Auntie Em’s closer to her gate.  I was just thankful she had time to get across that airport.

I continued to load the car and make my way North to Illinois.  Later during the drive home…  Summer sent me a picture of 2 FJ Cruisers covered in a decent coat of snow.  Ha!  Springtime in Colorado!

Summer settled in with the Nates and the rest of her friends from the Air Force ROTC Honor Guard.  Mrs. Elliott, one of the team moms had an AIRBNB for them.  I got a message from her that said the kids were all nice and warm in the basement… Playing games.  Big shocker right?

Saturday was the competition.  I didn’t hear about the results until later Saturday night… But Summer said they had not placed.  She is said everyone was a bit down because of it.  Honestly… I won’t say it didn’t matter to me…  I only want the best for those guys… but I was particularly thrilled just to know Summer was there and put in the hard work to make it happen.

Summer and the gang made this trip last year in one of the final independent things she had done before her cancer diagnosis.  We had thrown new tires on our Prius and let them drive our car all the way to Colorado Springs and back for the span of a weekend.  She planned it and booked the hotel by herself.  I really didn’t think much about it at the time.  Summer has always been the “planner” for trips.  Shocker right?  Wonder where that comes from?

---

Speaker of trips…  Last year on Memorial Day weekend…  We started this whole adventure.  I messaged Summer a tentative plan for a western road trip.  She had told me a few days ago that she wanted to go back to Mt Rushmore.  We have already been there, and that breaks my rules of going to the same place twice, but her explanation was that we took her so long ago that she barely remembers it.  I do recall it was a whirlwind tour over a Columbus Day weekend.  It was so long ago that the previous service manager yelled at me for how many miles I put on the loaner RAV4 from Forts at the time.  I think we did nearly 2000 miles in a few days!  Central Illinois to Devils Tower along with a 100 sights along the way.

This trip…  If it holds together for Memorial Day 2023 will be a similar route with some additional destinations that will secure those ultra-valuable Jr Ranger Badges.  Map below.