DELAYS

Greeting Crew and Shipmates,

Another change of month is coming. It seems like time has flown by from when our first information came about the diagnosis. Most can commiserate with the feeling of knowing you have only a short amount of time to sleep before you have to be up and moving for a busy day. It seems those ‘short nights’ lead to constantly checking the clock to find that the time is just blowing past and  the sleep still doesn’t come. The harder you try to keep it going slowly, the faster it goes. So has been the time since The Passenger’s diagnosis. Already, I try to make summer last as long as possible and hold off the coming of winter even longer, so the spring and summer months already go too quickly. Now, with the added desire to squeeze every minute out of every day, watching the calendar tick off months so rapidly, it’s like trying to keep that night from passing when sleep doesn’t come.

A delay in getting the treatment going has been a bit of frustration. Already the second set of steroids is coming to an end and without the start of the new medication in sight, a third round will have to begin. Part of the issue is, surprisingly, insurance (that’s sarcasm). The insurance we have through the Ohio Police and Fire Pension Fund does not include the Cleveland Clinic. After already having the Clinic’s pathologist review the material, now we have to start again with a pathologist from University Hospital.

That is one delay and it comes on the heels of having to complete another CAT Scan, a new breathing test and a new walking test all which must be completed before I meet with Dr. N again. The new tests are designed to see what changes have occurred since the original set. Scheduling all of that has made it so I won’t be seeing Dr. N until almost the beginning of July. In reality, we know that the new medication isn’t expected to do anything to reverse my condition, just to make the symptoms less difficult, still it would seem like progress, I suppose.

So, to update the Voyage status, know that the Genesis two-seven will be making port at University Hospital this coming month and beaming down to Aultman North a couple of times to get some tests completed. We were pleased with our Crewmate Ally getting her first infusion treatment at Children’s this past week. Thank you so very much for keeping The Passenger and all those involved with our Voyage in your prayers!