Child needing regular hospital treatments

Darren - December 10, 2020

Advice

Hi.  We live in the UK and my 10 year old has recently been diagnosed with leukaemia requiring regular hospital visits for chemotherapy (around a 35 mile round trip each time).

Does anyone have any experience or ideas around planning for this?  Instead of getting away from a disaster, we are likely to have to drive into it and into a city to still access life saving treatments.

3  

I am so sorry to hear about your child and this extremely difficult situation that they are going through right now. My thoughts are also with you and your whole family, as this will be a taxing and a difficult time for all of you. 

My brother-in-law has some medical conditions and he has mentioned concerns he has had about access to medical supplies that he needs every month just to live. If there was a hiccup in the supply chain or a disaster hit and things just stopped coming in, he is going to have to get creative and think of what to do.

Prepping with a medical condition is not an easy thing. But hopefully the great folks on here can offer some suggestions to help give you a bit of peace of mind and comfort.

I would sit down and talk with your doctor or the people at this chemotherapy treatment center. I don’t know if the UK had a shortage of toilet paper earlier this year like we did in the US, but if that is an applicable analogy, I would say something like: “Remember when covid hit at the beginning of the year and there was a shortage of toilet paper? You couldn’t find it anywhere. It was at that moment that I realized that I wanted to work on being a bit more prepared, storing extra food and water in case there is a shortage or a disaster that makes it difficult to access those things. With this challenge that has come up in our lives recently with my (son/daughter), I want to try and prepare the best that I can to take care of them, even if there is a shortage of supplies or we are not able to make it here to the treatment center right away. Can you help brainstorm with me on anything I can do to provide relief, comfort, and health for my child if a disaster was ever to happen? It sure would help give me a better sense of control and peace.”

Hopefully they can think up some things to help you out with the medical side of things. I’m not too familiar with leukemia, what treatment is required, and all that is involved. If there are any medicines, or medical supplies that you use at home, try and stock up on those as much as possible. I’ve seen news articles of medication shortages because many are made in China and India and covid is taking it’s toll on many manufacturing plants.

It seems like a big part of receiving that life saving treatment is traveling that 35 mile round trip to the treatment center. Making sure you have a good reliable vehicle will be important. Make sure it is functioning correctly, always have extra gasoline incase there is a shortage of that (could be very likely one day), check the air pressure and life of your spare tire, and other things on your vehicle. You don’t need that to be the reason why you can’t make it to the treatment center. Having a neighbor, taxi, or other way to get there as a Plan B is a good idea too. 

Plan multiple ways to get to the treatment facility if there was a disaster and your normal way was cut off. 

Again, I am so sorry for this challenge in your lives right now. I hope things look up for you soon, and I admire your desire to be prepared and take care of your child, even if a disaster was to happen.

 

Good afternoon Darren,

First, all the hopes and wishes for 10 year old’s speedy recovery.

Actually, you are in compliance with the basic emergency management principle: “Go toward safety and not away from danger”.  The visits to the hospital are required.  All else is nominal.

Here are my immediate thoughts:

–  Family discussion on work schedule(s), available hospital appointment times and best time for driving … hoping to mesh all this.

–  Have car oil changed now and keep it “fresh” and topped off.  Check and maintain proper tire pressure.  Check battery for charge. If old consider immediately a replacement battery.  The trip to hospital must be made stress free, especially in this winter season with both rough weather and the tier quarantines going on.

–  Start collecting best colorful type books for kid.  They might be glossy page guides to flowers/trees/shrubs or commercial aircraft of the varous eras and types of planes.  Consider getting kid a radio for room.  

Again, all the best re the treatments.

~ Bob

 

https://www.roswellpark.org/cancertalk/201711/preparing-child-chemotherapy-infusions

Darren, See if anything useful in above link.

~ Bob