This is waaaay overdue.
We’re in the airport in LA waiting for our flight (that is delayed) so I’ll try to do a quick catch up.
Monday was Genevieve’s last treatment. It was much like the others. The final consensus was hardware pain. I spent the afternoon and evening filling out the FAFSA form which took forever, and making arrangement to visit GCU in Phoenix in the way home.
Tuesday morning we packed up our room at the Ronald McDonald House. I have to say again how amazing it was to be able to stay there. Every night of the week volunteers came in and cooked dinners. They also had an industrial coffee machine that makes mocha chunks and macchiatos, and lots of snacks as well. The staff and volunteers were so caring and welcoming. We took a bumpy flight to Dallas, had a couple hour layover and then a really bumpy flight to Phoenix. We Uber’d to the GCU hotel and were not very impressed with the surrounding (which we expected, but still). The next morning we took the shuttle to campus for the tour. We again saw more of the surrounding area and I pretty much wrote off GCU as a possibility. Then we got on campus and everything changed. The tour was great and Genevieve fell in love with it. I’m not going to spend a lot of time with the details, but reach out if you want to know more. It was a pleasant surprise. The tour was mostly golf cart with a little walking. We came back and rested because Genevieve was pretty sore, then went back onto campus to see it at night. We walked just a little more and then Genevieve was physically done. She was happy with seeing the school but was paying for it 😥.
Thursday morning we caught a flight to Santa Ana so we could tour Vanguard University. We went to pick up the rental car but hit a roadblock. I had my wallet stolen last summer and still had not gone in to get a replacement drivers license. Going to the DMV is easy to keep putting off. I have carried around my expired DL for all ID purposes and kind of forgot about it. Guess where an expired IF won’t work? Ugh. No rental car. So I decided to get a car using the Turo app (private car rentals that’s like an AirBnB for cars). You have to submit a photo of your drivers license which I luckily had on my phone (Avis/Enterprise/Dollar would not accept). We Uber’d to the Turo car and then drove to Vanguard. Met with an admission counselor and got the tour. Nice really small school but Genevieve I could tell that it was not a contender for Genevieve after GCU. We left there at 4:15 and drove straight to the local DMV to get a new DL. I was in and out of there in 10 minutes. It was a DMV world record! We went to a hotel for the night.
Friday morning we packed up and drove to pick up a rental car from Budget because I needed a one way rental that I would either leave at LAX or drive back to the Bay Area depending on whether Genevieve was going to get surgery next week. We picked up the rental, then went and dropped off the Turo, then finally got on the road for Beverly Hills (where Genevieve’s arrogant foot surgeon is located when he’s not in NY).
I’m actually not in the mood to write about the appointment. Let’s just say the first half of the appointment we were planning on surgery to remove the hardware next week, and then he did a 180 and said he would not do the surgery until she after her 18th birthday (July). There is so much to fill in but I’m too frustrated to write it out. Maybe tomorrow or this weekend. We are now at the airport waiting for our flight. I’m so ready to be home, but also sad and discouraged that we don’t have a plan in place to get Genevieve pain free in the near future.
So here we are.
