New York Marathon was awesome

Wow what a fantastic day we had watching the New York Marathon on Sunday! We got up and went to 1st Avenue at about 10am and watched the wheelchairs and some bikes go by, then the crowds started to gather around and the street was quickly lined with people everywhere. At first only a few runners came by, but then thousands were running by for hours! We tried so hard to look for our friends, but the faces started to become a blur after a while. The energy of people cheering and clapping was awesome. Dylan was comfortable in his wheelchair cheering away and proudly holding his Australian flag. I couldn’t believe seeing so many disabled people in the race, it was so inspirational! People ran for many reasons, a lot were running to raise money for different causes and some were running in memory of a loved one. We all had on Ronald McDonald House T-Shirts and handed Gatorade, water and oranges to the runners as they ran past. We saw several Australians running, Skye and I even got my American friends chanting “Aussie Aussie Aussie, io io io” The first runner we knew was Kevin, Sydney’s dad, next came Rich who works at the Ronald. Dylan was really upset because he had dashed to the bathroom (yes he still has a pooping issue) and he missed seeing Rich, but a few minutes later he saw Justine! His face lit up as she stopped to hug him and showed him that she was running with his photo pinned to her back. By about 3pm we started to walk down 1st Avenue and Dylan started to stress about going too far from the bathroom. He decided he wanted to hang out with Skye and play on her computer, so Teresa and I headed up to Central Park to see if we could find Chris, Paul, Scott, Suzie and Dr Kushner, who we seemed to miss run past. We stood watching the runners as they came from the Bronx into the park, by this time they looked so exhausted, it was amazing seeing everyone still going such an enormous distance. We met up with Chris at Central, he had already completed the course. He felt so bad that he missed seeing Dylan, Chris had “running for Dylan” on his shirt and really wanted Dylan to see it. Paul took a little longer to finish, but he did it, considering he is not long out of transplant, he did amazingly well. I don’t think I could have even walked the marathon, let alone run it.

Yesterday was a long day in clinic, Dylan had the antibody and chemo, along with another potassium infusion. His counts are still great but the diarrhea is still an issue. The anti diarrhea medication was changed to 2 hourly Loperamide, and it seems to be working a little better. Today Dylan had another potassium infusion and chemo. The doctor decided that home fluids with potassium would be better than the oral potassium, so tonight Dylan has a home bag. After clinic we went to Justine’s for some good old Aussie lamb chops. Dylan did well eating, but felt a bit sore in the stomach, I think now that the diarrhea has reduced, his stomach is readjusting. We are getting excited about his birthday, thank you to everyone who has sent cards and gifts. I am so amazed at all our love and support, I never in my wildest dreams would have thought that my precious boy would touch so many hearts. Dylan also got a special birthday wish from Hospital Gowns If you visit their website and you have you allow “pop ups” you will see a pop up when you enter the site, well that’s for Dylan…check it out, we love it!