Jun 22 – Have made the 2nd of the 4 corners – Blaine Wa

June 22, 2011 Wednesday Oak Harbor, WA

MADE IT  TO BLAINE, WA – 2 CORNERS DOWN, 2 TO GO

Monday morning I went to the Shriners Hospital in Portland – another challenging, encouraging experience. In the next day or two I will upload to my photo bucket page a variety of pictures, some that tell more than words – pictures of yet more rows of little feet and legs, waiting to help normalize children who just want the chance to be kids.  As in Sacrament, I was entranced by the Motion Analysis lab.  I saw a video of a young boy moving across the room with a gait I cannot describe; as best as I understand, he had a birth defect & his kneecaps were on backwards.  After intricate studies and cross-discipline conferences, the surgeons performed corrective work.  The second video showed him walking with a gait that was normal!!   I also saw photos of a child with a birth defect that results in one leg significantly shorter than the other, to the point that the foot on the short leg is roughly level with the knee on the good leg.  The doctors at Shriners perform surgery on the short leg that includes turning that foot so that the anklebone can act as a knee.  The prosthesis attaches to rotated foot, and the child has the benefit of movement at the knee level.

I had an interesting conversation with a tech in the prosthesis lab who explained that she attended a technical college and received an Associate of Arts Degree in prosthesis, that there are only a handful of such schools in the country, and she particularly enjoys what she does.   So I learned of a career choice I had never considered, one for which there is a strong demand and one that “pays back” to our society.

The Shriners Children’s Hospital in Portland has recently expanded their facilities and thus has the staff and services for more children than they currently serve.  Isn’t it a positive note to learn that a medical facility can provide more free and critically important services to children?

I left the Shriners Hospital, again “being run out of town” by another biker and member of the motorcade from the local Shriners.  I needed all the help I could get negotiating that city traffic!  Soon I was safely headed north on Interstate 5 and my escort waved goodbye.  The traffic was OK until I got up into Seattle, just in time for the 5pm rush hour.  I don’t know why anyone would voluntarily drive in that craziness on a routine basis. After getting turned around my requiste number of times, I stopped for the night at a motel near the Ronald McDonald House.

Tuesday morning I toured the Seattle Ronald McDonald House, and the experience made up for all the traffic.  Ronald McDonald Houses (RMH) around the country provides housing for the families of children who are hospitalized or in need of intensive outpatient care.  The facilities are set up something like a motel but with many expanded services.  Some people associate the Ronald McDonald House exclusively with the McDonald’s food chain and assume the RMH is fully funded by McDonalds.  However, McDonald’s provides approximately 20% of the annual budget and the balance comes from the community.  In other words, the RMH relies on your help to stay in the business of helping families.

This Ronald McDonald House (RMH) primarily serves the Seattle Children’s Hospital.  Because the Children’s Hospital serves a large population of children with cancer and those requiring bone marrow transplants, the average length of stay for a family at the Seattle RMH is 40 days.  There is a separate building on the grounds in which the families of children receiving bone marrow transplants live.  They are kept separate to help insure the children are not exposed to germs from the general population.

It is common for the sick child to complete in-patient care and need extended services on an out-patient basis, so then the child simply moves in with his or her family there at the RMH.  The family stays together, and the child moves on with treatment.

The main house was, of course, clean, modern, and well maintained.  Some of my favorite touches include – a room for teenagers to hang out in, equipped with game machines, TVs, etc. and a professional graffiti artist painted the walls!  Then there’s the theater, provided by Rashard Lewis, a professional basketball player formerly with the Seattle Sonics.  The individual that does the playgrounds for the McDonald chains provided the indoor playground for young kids; the large tree and adjoining bridge are soft to the touch and beautifully colored.  And the extra touch provided by volunteers is evidently everywhere.  The grounds are beautiful and are an on-going gift from volunteers – a group of master gardeners.  A group of quilters makes and gives a quilt to each family as they check in; several people knit hats for the children who have lost their hair to chemo; others decorate pillow cases for the kids; a group of women bring their sewing machines to the House and mend whatever is needed; various groups and clubs cook meals for the residents several times a week.  Therapy dogs pass through, searching out lonely people of all sizes; there’s a homework club, volunteers that come to help the kids stay current with their schoolwork.

My grandson was critically injured in an accident 4 years ago and spent 9 days in pediatric intensive care; his parents lived a nightmare no parent wants to imagine.  During that time, his parents were able to drive back to their home, less than 30 miles away.  As I sat in the waiting rooms over those days, I listened to the stories other parents shared, parents who did not live close to the vital medical care their child required, parents who were able to be close to the hospital by staying at the Pensacola Ronald McDonald House. And so I know a little of the trauma a family experiences when a little one is critically ill; though my family did not have to rely on the services of the Ronald McDonald House, I want to help insure it is there for any parent living that nightmare.

I left the Ronald McDonald House and headed north on Interstate 5 to Mukilteo WA where I caught the ferry to Whidbey Island.  I was the only motorcycle on the ferry so I was dead center at the front of the bow, an impressive seat from which to watch the Puget Sound go by.  The ferry ride was too short; the bike ride up the island was also.  As I headed north on WA 20, I rolled through miles of pastoral lands, then thought, “Must be getting close to the water again — I smell mud flats.”  Sure enough, I rounded a couple of corners and there was the water, at low tide.  I rode and grinned ‘til I made it to my friend Jim’s in Oak Harbor.

My initial plans were to leave today/Wednesday, but my passport finally came into Pensacola and I want to cross over into Canada before I get to the Atlantic.  I couldn’t figure out the geometry to have it mailed somewhere in the mid-west, general delivery, so my sister-in-law has overnighted it here. Today I rode up to Blaine for the second of the four corners.  In route, I had the oil changed on the bike & my tires checked (he said they’re wearing in the middle!! Not a good thing.  Obviously I’ve spent too much time on the Interstate).  Then I took the obligatory picture of my bike at the Blaine, WA post office, and stopped for a few minutes in the small town.  People often come up to me to talk – what do you expect when they see a grandmother on a big bike, loaded to the gills.  So I wasn’t surprised when a man, maybe mid-40’s, smiled and read the placard on my front windshield and said, “What’s a ‘gypsy judge’?”  I explained my 4 corners 4 kids, and he let out an easy chuckle.  He said, “Me too, sort of.  I’m hitch hiking though.  I left Sarasota, Fl. 14 days ago and hitch hiked up here.”  I realized he’d gotten to Blaine quicker than I had!  He said his trip was one of his bucket-list items, that traveling clean-shaven and with an American flag made it a different trip than some hitchhikers experienced.  He said he’d had 45 rides, had come diagonally across the country (see there – I could have made it in 14 days if I came that way); and that he thought he might go on up to Alaska but he was getting tired.  So from Blaine he was heading south and east, aiming at Sarasota.  As he walked off, he said, “Give me a lift if we pass down the line – if you think I’ll fit on your bike,” waved and turned a corner.

I headed south on Hwy 11, the Chuckanut Hwy.  What a beautiful ride! The road follows the coast line & is blanketed with fir and cedar which are often covered in green moss while large ferns grew everywhere – further proof that this is the “north-wet”. Back on Hwy 20 I stopped for gas and met a woman coming out of the bathroom.  She was pretty much my size, height, weight, and age – except she moved with difficulty on a walker, and I was dancing around the country on an over-sized dream.  Just in case I need to be reminded how very luck I am.

Hwy 20 crosses Deception Pass, an amazing waterway that connects Skagit Bay with the Strait of Juan de Fuca.  I stopped, of course, for pictures and was treated to an aerial dance by a pair of mature bald eagles.  I rode back to Jim’s, grateful and grinning.

Tomorrow after the FedEx package arrives, I’ll head east on Hwy 20 and cross the Cascades.  Yeah!!!!  But it’s a very, very long way from here to Maine…