August Hurricanes

It's been quite a month.

In early August I spent a few lovely days by the lake at Tasha's family cabin at Pelican Point in Saskatchewan. Card games, friends, sunshine and hot dogs sure work to relax me. A couple of days later I travelled to Grand Cayman with Dave. As these pictures will show, we had some wonderful days together, basically snorkeling our heads off with the creatures beneath the sea.





As many of you already know, our trip was interrupted with the news on Wednesday that Hurricane Dean was tracking to hit the island late Sunday evening/Monday morning (our Air Canada flight was scheduled for Sunday noon. We decided to invest options the next morning. By Thursday morning, all flights leaving before ours were full. One airline official who had been in Hurricane Ivan three years ago said some evacuation flights might be added, but they would be after our flight left. We called Air Canada to confirm they were planning to operate their flight and they were. We confirmed that they had my email address and cell phone number as contact information. The Canadian consulate also confirmed they understood the flight would go. So we waited.

On Saturday morning on our way to go snorkel we went to return a movie we'd rented, but had to wait 10 minutes until the store opened. We decided to go into the internet cafe while we waited, where we'd been checking the hurricane tracking over the past two days. I thought I'd just go on to Air Canada's site and check our flight status. The phrase "this flight has been cancelled" flashed on the screen and our stomachs fell. I dialed my mom and dad on my cell phone and told them to phone Air Canada to see what they could find out, as the 1-800 number we had did not work from my phone. We fled back to the condo and started frantically packing. Our parents both called to report they'd talked to Air Canada and it was cancelled. We left for the airport, where thousands of people were sprawled outside the small terminal, trying to board or find tickets. After Dave and I spent hours lined up at various airlines, the best we had was two tickets (not seats)on a flight just added by American Airlines scheduled to leave at 6:45 PM Sunday, which was a bit tight for time, and the flight was oversold. In the blistering heat we went to our rental car to cool down, and Dave continued to try to find someone to explain my medical condition, in case I could get a seat somehow. While he was out talking to an airline contact, I noticed a small awning just outside the arrival area of the terminal, with PricewaterhouseCoopers across the top. When Dave returned to the car, he said he'd seen the awning too, and I ran over to see what it was about. It was the PwC Grand Cayman office, evacuating on a flight they'd chartered. Unfortunately they'd long since submitted the manifest, the passenger flight list. On hearing my medical condition, however, they phoned the airline just in case they would add our names. Luckily for us, they added us and we flew to Orlando on the charter flight, catching a Westjet flight back to Toronto on Sunday. We never did hear from Air Canada. I can't explain how frightening it was, and how Air Canada just completely disregarded the lives of their customers.

After a couple days of rest following the hurricane escape, I headed to the hospital for chemo "day one" again. While my blood counts were good and the chemo uneventful, Dr. Brown updated me on the progress made on the transplant trial. Without going into details, it looks like it will be very unlikely that the clinical trial can happen in Calgary, mostly because of the nature of a controlled single-institution study. Further to that, it is quite possible that Alberta Health will consider the transplant "experimental", in which case it would not approve it as an insured service should I need to go to New York for the procedure. If that is the case, there may be no amount of the procedure covered. As you can imagine, after the significant energy I poured into making the decision to go with the transplant, I was in another hurricane that day, spinning with this news.

Luckily, the next morning I flew to Regina (on Westjet as you can imagine) for an incredibly wonderful hurricane of family - 14 uncles and aunts, 33 cousins, and all of their spouses and children gathered to celebrate my grandma Antonini's upcoming 90th birthday. There are no words to describe the love and energy I felt sharing the weekend with everyone - we flew kites, sang songs, ate, drank, visited, and laughed and laughed. I also played my first golf game since my relapse and surgery, and while my swing was light, I played all 18 and our group scored the lowest of the 3 groups (although we did not win?!). Davis and Jack made their first appearance with the "big family" and of course were a hit. The weekend was definitely what I needed!

Of course, 5 solid days of standing, visiting and playing golf, after just escaping a hurricane and having days 1-5 of chemo, left me a little exhausted. Well, totally exhausted. But worth it. So, last week was a bit of a write off. I took some good advice and decided to put my list of transplant to-dos on a shelf for a few days and recharge. Mom and Dad and I even headed to the mountains for a night in Kananaskis on Saturday, which of course helped the recovery speed. Mountain air sure heals.

So now, I'm back to business. I have several duties this week with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society - speaking at an information session, chairing our board meeting, and attending a fundraising committee meeting. I'm also going to try to find out more about where the transplant option is at, if there's still a chance to get Alberta Health on board, and what exactly the cost of doing the transplant in New York would be. As always, I'll keep you updated!

Cheers