Family Fun Night

The University of Florida Proton Centre is where he is having his treatment. They are fantastic. Once a fortnight they hold a Family Fun Night, where they put on some food and entertainment and invite all the children who are having treatment. Joel hit it off with two other young boys from the UK and they went crazy. The three of them were so energetic and were playing chase and tag. He really loved meeting them. One of them was 4 and the other was 5 so you can imagine they had fun. They both have to have their treatment under general anaesthetic, one of them has a real phobia of the mask. We feel very lucky that our consultant in Bristol, Alison Cameron, was so fantastic. She suggested that with practice Joel would manage to lie still. We travelled up to Bristol a number of times to practice and to make a mask. Out of the other 4 children from the UK that we've met here, not one of them was advised to practice before starting their treatment. I'm not sure that Joel would have managed without general anaesthetic without the work that was put in before we came.

At the Family Fun Night the boys were able to paint and decorate a mug and a tile that would then be fired and taken home. Unfortunately I was chatting to another family whilst the boys were under Martin's supervision, so the end result was a mish mash of colours all smeared together as he left them to it!