Journey

School camp at Te Wera Valley Lodge (www.tewera-lodge.co.nz/the-lodge/) is a rite of passage for Taranaki kids.  It is an action packed week in the isolated eastern hill country; water slides, flying fox, crossing a dam by raft, archery, bush skills, spotlight and the infamous mud run.  I attended Te Wera with Sam and Sean attended with Rory.  It was real quality time.  We made many memories which we still talk about today.  Sean and I planned to attend camp at Te Wera with all the boys.  It is Colt’s turn this year.  Inglewood Primary has been working hard to make this opportunity available for its intermediate students in a Covid world.  They have reduced the camp to 3 days and split the Intermediate classes so two attend for the first half of the week and two for the last half.  They have reduced the number of adult helpers to a minimum and require a vaccine pass.  Currently there are 190 cases of Omicon in Taranaki.  There are no confirmed cases in Inglewood Primary students or their families.  In spite of the measures and the statistics there is still the potential for camp to be a spreader event.  School is a spreader event, but more time together in closer proximity increases the risk a little more.  This increased risk is the reason Sean and I have been agonising for a month about whether to let Colt attend camp at Te Wera next week.  We have been going around in increasingly faster circles.  We have spoken to the Principal, Colt’s teacher and our GP. 

I read news articles about how the country is divided into two camps.  Those who are hunkering down, very much like during lockdown, while the Omicron wave passes over, and those who are taking all the measures they can to be safe and then getting on with life.  The temptation to hunker down with Rory is almost overwhelming.  We have to stifle the urge to seal him in a bubble to prevent further pain, illness and injury.  However, it is not like it was before.  Omicron is in our community and it is here to stay.  There are a million and one ways Rory (and we) could catch it even if we lived in a bubble.  Living in a bubble is not living and Rory needs to live as time is always going to be of the essence.  So we take very deep breaths, continue to let Rory out into the community to do what he loves, and pack for Te Wera camp.  We are immunised, masked, wash our hands frequently and have reduced close contact to those who form the core of our lives.  We hope for the best.  We hope we have made the right decision. 

It has been a week of meetings.  Sean and Rory had a meeting with Jane at WITT to see if Rory could participate in the Skills for Living course part-time this year.  Rory and I attended a one hour zoom interview with Marg, a researcher from Massey University.  She is working on the Exceptional Trajectories: Transforming Understandings of Cancer Survivorship project.  This project investigates how cancer survivors, their companions and supporters, and their health and medical carers represent, understand and negotiate survivorship, to gain insights into extraordinary survivorship.  Rory, Sean and I attended a one hour zoom call with Jes from ACC to discuss how we progress the claims which have been approved for Rory (calcification of his brain and secondary cancer).  In addition Rory attended his first volunteering session at Inglewood Library.  One afternoon Sean cut firewood with angel Corey’s dad Hayden.  Ally and Hayden generously gift firewood to local Child Cancer Foundation families from their farm.  We have been one of the lucky recipients.