My Battle with Merkel Cell Cancer

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The photo above was taken on the 2nd formal night of the family cruise. Standing from
left to right, are Mike, our youngest son, Leanna, his wife, Brian, our middle son, Dana,
Gary's wife, and Gary, our oldest son. Sitting are Judy and me. To my left is Eva, our
oldest granddaughter, Age 10 1/2. The bottom row consists of Sara, Eli, Bel, and
Sammie. Sara, 4 1/2 and Bel, 2 1/2 belong to Gary and Dana. Sammie 3 1/2 and Eli 1 1/2
belong to Mike and Leanna. The cruise began with numerous fiascoes. Mike and his
family together with Judy and I all stayed at the Holiday Inn in Long Beach. There was
supposed to be a free shuttle going to the terminal from the hotel, and we could park the
car for a week at no additional charge. It turned out that the shuttle only went to the Long
Beach port and our cruise was taking off from San Pedro. we needed to get a shuttle to
take us to the cruise terminal, and it was quite a job fitting all the luggage into that shuttle,
(not free). There was a virus going around, and Sara was sick, and we were not sure that
we would be able to get onto the ship. They do have a health questionnaire, and they
have the right to bar access to the cruise if they feel that a person may be a health risk to
passengers. However everybody managed to meet on board ship and get underway. The
premise was that for the family cruise, everybody would be on their own, but we would all
meet for dinner. In fact, most of the time, we were together. This was very nice, but did
involve more babysitting for Judy than she had anticipated. The 1st two family dinners
were terribly disorganized. The wait staff was particularly slow, and this exceeded the
patience of the grandchildren. There were lots of requests for special orders for the small
children, and this somewhat overburdened the waiter and his assistant. By the time we
had the 3rd dinner, after I spoke to the maître d', the situation was fairly well resolved.
However there were many instances where grandchildren had to be taken out of the
dining room and food for the parents was sent to the room. There is an excellent
children's program on board the ship. However 2 of the grandchildren were too young to
stay there without adult supervision. Much of the time, the adult supervisor was Judy. In
the middle of the cruise, Sammie ran a fever of up to 104. She did not seem nearly as
sick as that number would indicate. However clearly, there was a virus involved. In Cabo
San Lucas, Brian took Eva ziplining, and that was a highlight for them. On the last night,
there was another fiasco. Eva and Sarah disappeared and were nowhere to be found.
There is nothing so terrifying as the disappearance of children. We had the whole ship's
crew searching for them, and they turned up at a dance club, where they were having a
great time dancing as everybody else was searching. At the end of the cruise, we all went
our separate ways. However everybody but Brian ended up meeting for lunch just south
of Bakersfield on the way home. Mike and his family stayed over at our house as it would
be too long a trip to drive all the way to San Jose where they were going to stay with her
parents for a week. This is the time when Eli became ill. He spent the whole night crying
and could not be soothed enough to get some sleep. On Sunday morning, they took him
My Battle with Merkel Cell Cancer