Last Friday, Gary's mom, Elaine, visited us in the hospital. She lives about 40 minutes away in Queens, so it's a bit of a trip. But it was wonderful for all of us!
By coincidence, Gary's "primary" oncologist, Dr. Lamanna, stepped in for a medical visit. This was Elaine's first time meeting Dr. Lamanna after all these years, and she found it helpful and reassuring to meet the person responsible for Gary's treatment.
During Elaine's visit, another long-standing friend of Gary's, KYLE, popped in. Kyle and Gary have the same piano teacher, Deanna, who visited a couple of weeks ago. We invited Kyle to come use our piano any time, since he no longer has one in his new apartment!
That's Kyle on the right, next to Elaine.
Below is a super photo of the three of us!
Also this past weekend... My amazing friend for nearly twenty years, DAVID, came down from Canada to visit us! He stayed in the apartment with me and then visited Gary twice over the weekend. That's him, below, on the left.
You'll notice that Gary is eating some of the spaghetti and meatballs that David brought up to the room from the local pizza joint!
For the past couple of months, Gary and I have been blessed with some help at home from ADISA, who is well known to my sister's family. Adisa worked as a chef in Europe before coming to America, but more recently has lived mostly in NJ. Here we are on our street, 99th, just some goofy shots of Adisa in her funky sunglasses enjoying the Upper West Side "lifestyle"!
Last weekend, I attended weekend-long patient education conference by the Lymphoma Research Foundation, held at a big hotel in Brooklyn.
Pictured, below, is MEG, who is the CEO of the non-profit cancer & nutrition organization, Cook for Your Life. But I met her a while before that in her role as the Patient Services Manager at the NYC Chapter of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Meg and the LLS have been tremendously supportive of Gary's request for compassionate access to the life-saving medication he badly needs.
Below is photo of me in front of the conference poster, along with Jen, who is the head staff of the Lymphoma Research Foundation's chapter in Texas.
At the conference, I heard presentations on Gary's type of cancer from doctors in New York and Dana-Farber in Boston. At this time, however, it's hard to take advantage of seeing them because Gary's medical situation is keeping him in hospital. Still, however, we are waiting to hear back from the lymphoma side where he is now, to explore options.
Lots of great photos, and wow, a Canadian visitor! :) So much love and friendship in these photos.
ReplyDeleteI think it's great that Elaine got to meet Dr. Lamanna at last.
And I see COW behind Kyle! :)