Bryan Woo and a Pause on Treatment
This is old news to most everyone who follows this blog, but in the event that you hadn't heard yet, Charlotte had a very fun meeting last week with Mariners pitcher Bryan Woo. You might recall during Round 21/Round 6, that Bryan Woo sent some cleats to SCH for patients to decorate during Art Therapy. Charlotte had a good time making splatter paint on the shoes during chemo (we actually had to leave partway through the session to go get an infusion), and we hoped that we might be able to see him wear them during an upcoming game, but no one really knew what to expect. Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when Lauren and I received an email from Children's that they had worked out a time with the Mariners to surprise Bryan with the cleats, and that we were invited to go! We had to shuffle some appointments with our team, but everyone agreed that this opportunity was too cool to pass up!
The actual meeting with Bryan was quite the treat. We met at T-Mobile Park with a representative from Children's and another patient, Cooper, who worked on one of the other sets of shoes. With everyone arrived, we were ushered into the park and down into the Press Room. Various members from the Mariners staff worked on setting up cameras, lights and getting microphones on the kids - this was to be a real production! A few moments later, Bryan came in one of the side doors and promptly introduced himself to all of us, shook our hands, and took a seat on the stage between the two kids. Bryan opened each shoebox one at a time, and engaged with Cooper and Charlotte about their contributions. He shared about his own stay in the ICU of a Children's Hospital, and how that experience motivated him to donate the cleats to SCH. He was very genuine in his interactions with both kids and in his excitement about the finished products. We only ended up spending about 30 minutes with him, but we could not have left the experience with a higher opinion of his character. We are Bryan Woo fans for life.
The representatives let us know to expect some local news coverage later that day, and that Bryan would be wearing a pair of the cleats during his start the next day. We eagerly tuned into the pregame (only about 45 minutes earlier than it started) to watch, and sure enough there was all sorts of coverage before, during and after the game. No surprise that he had one of his best outings of the season, given the shoes. The pair he wore were the ones that Cooper had helped design, but he told us that he wants to wear them all during the season, it just depends on what uniforms the team is wearing for that day that dictates which shoes he wears. We'll definitely be tuning in for upcoming starts to see if the splatter paint cleats that Charlotte worked on make an appearance.
In other Charlotte news, we've decided to take a slight pause in treatment. We had been gearing up for her 8th and final round of Ifosfamide and Etoposide (23rd overall round of chemo), however she had been having some trouble meeting the required blood counts to start treatment. After a few delays, we made the decision with our team that another round didn't make sense at this time. The team at SCH tries for a minimum of 6 rounds of I & E, and up to 8 rounds if the child is handling it well. With how slow Charlotte had been to recover from rounds 6 and 7, we figured this was a good time to hit pause, let her recover some more and try to enjoy the summer. We'll have some scans in a few weeks to check on progress, and sometime after that we'll start a new type of treatment, but for now, we're looking to take advantage of fewer appointments in the short-term and hopefully some increased energy and ability to have some fun!
