My son, Hunter, and I called Ronald McDonald House in Iowa City, IA home for 6 weeks when he was having radiation treatments at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. It is an awesome place! At the current time there are 305 Ronald McDonald Houses around the world. Iowa City is blessed to be home to one of them.
On Thursday, Feb. 8, 2005 Hunter and I met with an Oncology/Radiation team at University Hospitals for the first time, a team headed by Dr. John Buatti. Dr. Buatti literally set my world spinning when he announced he was planning for Hunter to begin radiation treatments in Iowa City the next day.
When I could find my voice, I said, “But we have a cancer treatment center in Ottumwa.”
He shook his head no, “This hospital is the only place that has the advanced equipment Hunter’s treatment is going to require. If you’re worried about housing, we’ll help you work it out.”
I was worried about a whole lot of things besides housing, but housing was definitely one of them.. We were also in the process of legally adopting Hunter, but at that moment we were only foster parents who had to have permission from the state of Iowa to okay Hunter’s treatment.
By the time I had returned to Ottumwa, I had phone authorization for Hunter to begin treatment the next day, had contact information for Ronald McDonald House, and a phone call waiting for me from Dr. Buatti’s office. Writing the program for Hunter’s treatment schedule was going to be a whole lot more complicated than anybody had anticipated because of the location of his tumor, and it was going to take the better part of a week to write it.
For those who don’t believe in these things, I believe the events that unfolded over the next month and a half for Hunter and I give evidence to the fact that there is a higher being who walks before us, who walks beside us, who is with us and does not live us nor forsake us when we are stumbling along an unknown and troublesome path.
The following Tuesday in a blizzard that shut down the better part of the county, we met with our lawyer and Judge Owens at the Wapello County Court House to finalize Hunter’s adoption. Two days later, we began Hunter’s first radiation treatment at University Hospitals.
After an unbelievably exhausting day at the hospital, we arrived at Ronald McDonald House at supper time. We were shown to our room, given a brief tour of the facilities including the laundry facility and the kitchenette assigned to us, and invited to eat supper there. The supper had been prepared by one of the student sororities on campus, a taco buffet and fruit salads. This is actually a pretty normal occurrence at Ronald McDonald House, and sometimes 4 or 5 times a week, an outside organization comes in and prepares a supper meal for the families of children being treated at the hospital.
After supper we were offered tickets to the Iowa Hawkeye Basketball Game across the parking lot free of charge. While I would have loved nothing more than an early bed after we unpacked, I decided Hunter needed to have his mind taken off of where he was and why we were there, so I gladly accepted. Hunter was thrilled with everything about it, and the high-light of his evening was going down to the basketball court at half-time to meet Herky personally, shake his hand and do a little dance with him.
All the families staying at Ronald McDonald House are assigned a list of household duties while they are there, a list that rotates every day. The list includes things like: cleaning the laundry room, vacuuming the communal dining area or hallways, or foyer, vacuuming and dusting the rec room on the lower level, washing tables, cleaning the kitchenettes. When the daily chore was done, we signed a check-off list.
However, Hunter was admitted to the hospital for 14 days of his treatment, and during that time, I slept on a cot in his room, checking in at Ronald McDonald House only long enough for showers, shampoos, and a change of clothing some days. During that time, I noticed there were volunteers coming in to cover my chore list. I did them when I was able though.
Another blessing was that I met other women with sick children, and it provided a social network for Hunter and I. Until we found ourselves in Iowa City I didn’t know another person in the world with a child who had cancer. Now I did, and we had things in common somebody outside the experience simply couldn’t understand. Our lives were: PIC Lines, anesthesia, treatment rooms, recovery rooms, x-rays, glucose, IV Poles, beeping blood pressure machines, nausea meds, pain meds, doctors, nurses and lab technicians invading our personal space. And of course, fear. Fear that we struggled to push to the back burner of our lives here.
While I thanked God for these life-saving measures, it sometimes felt like being a lab rat in a very public cage. When we were able to go back to Ronald McDonald House, it was a welcome refuge, a place we could close the doors on all of this for a little while and do normal ‘mom and kid’ things like cuddle a teddy bear, read a book or watch a movie.
On more than one occasion donations of things like afghans or fleece blankets somebody had made or donated toys came into the main office and were given to the sick children. Those toys included things like stuffed animals, remote control cars, puzzles, games, word search books, picture books, crayons and coloring books.
The cost of all of this was less than a parking ticket at University of Iowa Hospitals cost us. I had been told if we couldn’t afford the minimum fee other arrangements would be made. We were blessed to be able to afford it, and gratefully did so. However, Ronald McDonald House is largely paid for by charitable donations. Children in schools across Iowa collect pop can tabs as a donation to our Iowa City Ronald McDonald House.
School is out for summer break, but we have a coffee can of pop can tabs to take to Iowa City on our next trip in July.
