Sunday, October 21, 2007

Our Latest Cincinnati Experience

Sometimes I get a chance to watch Extreme Home Makeover on television. Each week, this show reduces me to tears as Ty Pennington and colleagues tear down an unhealthy house and build a dream home in its place for a deserving family. It overwhelms me how gobs of people can come to the aid of one small family and treat them like royalty - with nothing in it for them.

Last Friday, I felt like I was the recipient of something similar. This was the day in which Children's Flight of Hope flew Simi, Asher, and me to Cincinnati so that we could go to Cincinnati Children's Hospital.

As you know from reading this blog, Cincinnati Children's is where Asher goes for treatment of his eosinophilic esophagitis. We have been going there for about a year, after 3 years of repeatedly receiving bad medical advice - advice which was hurting Asher - here locally. It's an expensive and exhausting trip and the medical treatment is expensive and difficult (which, I think, is well understated), but it's been worth it. Since January, since we began with the elemental formula and the food trials, Asher has been healthy for the first time in his life.

Thing is, the protocol calls for an endoscopy after every 3 food trials. The only real way we can know for certain that Asher's allergy is in remission is via endoscopy. And to get the endoscopy, we need to go to Cincinnati. That's a lot of money in flights, hotels and car rentals. It's a lot of time off work since it's a day to get up there, a day there, and a day to return home. It's a lot of stress because I have to carry all of Asher's foods (ya think this kid can find something to eat in a restuaurant? ha!) . I have to get 3 days of foods through airport security - and keep it cold enough to make the trip. Find a hotel with a kitchen. Make sure that the pots and pans have no left-over food residue. Ugh.

Needless to say, it's been 9 foods since we were last in Cincinnati. And if the biopsy shows over 20 eos per hpf, then all of those foods are suspect and we have to take them all out. That will be devastating!

Now I've found Children's Flight of Hope.

On Friday, two pilots flew me, Simi, and Asher to Cincinnati. The SOLE purpose of the trip was to bring the three of us to Cincinnati Children's for their medical care. These two pilots got up before 6 AM and arrived home after 9 PM - they spent their entire day - just to get the boys the medical care they needed. They asked nothing in return. The trip was absolutely amazing. Such an incredible act of selfless kindness like nothing I've ever experienced before. We were treated like royalty.

One added benefit is that the plane-ride made the journey fun for the boys. So the boys came home really enjoying their day in Cincinnati, if you can believe that!

With the help of Children's Flight of Hope, we can follow the protocol exactly. We can make the trips to Cincinnati that Asher needs.

Thank you, Children's Flight of Hope.

Hopefully we'll have the biopsy results tomorrow. I can't wait.

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