May 22nd, 2023
Boston friends, this is an urgent SOS to help find housing for a family that is inbound in 48-hours for emergency surgery for their 4-year old son. This is his last chance at life. They will be in town for 2-3 weeks. This family I have been helping for 2-3 months, last Monday, texted me “we are in the ER.” The next day, their team in the Midwest told the parents that their son, on his 4th relapse since 6-months old, has two weeks to live.
My bullshit meter went into overdrive and I said send me the MRI’s. I looked, immediately called Boston to see if they agreed with me that this was salvageable and the next day they looked and said “get him here, we can get it all.” So this family went on the emotional rollercoaster of looking at starting to be planning a funeral to planning a trip to fight one more time all in 24-hours. Crazy I know but this is the state of healthcare on Planet Earth.
They’d love to stay near the hospital (obviously), and are coming in this Weds, landing at 12noon, 6-days before Boston can get him into the much needed intraoperative MRI OR on May 30. I told them to come in early because if he doesn’t make it to then, the emergency is at the best children’s hospital in the world and his surgery would still be here with the same surgeon as Layla, only minus the iMRI machine.
Any help on accommodations would be great. They’d love an Airbnb type because 2-3 weeks is a long time to be crammed into a hotel but anything will do. Meals and rides and other things would also be helpful to them. This is their youngest of 3 kids, the other 2 will remain in the Midwest.
Last but not least, this child is actually the very first receipient of the “Gift a Beanie” and he has the Cancer Revengers poster on his bedroom wall. I keep telling every parent to get their kid to Boston, now let’s show them all why!