My sister’s family (again) benefits from Ronald McDonald House

Update, December 18: Kat started high school this fall and is doing well.

Update: We visited Kat in the hospital yesterday and today. Her recovery is going well. She will be in the hospital a few more weeks, then will be an outpatient staying at the Ronald McDonald House another week or two, then return home to Vermont. She still has months of outpatient treatment and isolation in Vermont after she gets home. But she’s on schedule and heading in the right direction.

Update: Kat’s transplant went well and she is having a good day and playing with Legos at the hospital.

I may have to eat at McDonald’s a time or two during this weekend’s trip to Boston.

Kat Devlin

I’m not a fan of fast-food, and the most ubiquitous fast-food restaurant chain is perhaps my least-favorite of that genre. Actually, I do like their fries and breakfast sandwiches, but the doctor did say I needed to lose some weight. But I’ve always admired that company’s most prominent charitable cause. The Ronald McDonald House has helped my sister’s family immeasurably. I wrote several blog posts in 2009 relating to the illness and death of my nephew Patrick Devlin. His eulogy still gets occasional traffic, which gives me a little comfort.

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Social media share Patrick’s emotional story

Some people who don’t use social media see it as self-indulgent and trivial.

They haven’t experienced the way that people have reached out through Twitter, Facebook and blogs to comfort my family after the death Wednesday of my nephew Patrick. They haven’t experienced how his father, John, shared the story of Patrick’s final months on CaringBridge with hundreds of friends, family and caring people he’d never met.

Social media are just communication tools. They aren’t inherently good or bad, frivolous or serious. When my father, Patrick’s grandfather, battled prostate cancer 31 years ago, people used the communication tools of the day – telephones, greeting cards and stationery – to express their support and encouragement during the fight and their sympathy after it ended. Generations before that used telegraph, quill pens and other tools.

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