Pat Flynn has provided Jose with two Angel Bus trips in his big, beautiful rig. The best trip will be on the day Jose goes to get a new kidney.

The day that shouldn’t have to come came on October 24, 2011 to eight-year-old Jose. It was the day his mother dreaded, the day he began dialysis for stage five chronic kidney disease.

Jose was born with a congenital defect found only in male infants, posterior urethral valve. This is an abnormality causing obstruction of urinary flow. Unfortunately, doctors failed to detect it in time, and the boy’s kidney function progressively declined, leading to the need for home dialysis. This meant surgically installing an abdominal catheter, a device that uses the lining of the abdomen to filter waste products from the blood. Dialysis occurs overnight, which means Jose has to be in bed by 8:00 on school nights, and 9 on weekends. And this is what made Jose cry and ask the heartbreaking question, “When am I going to be normal?”

“I’ve always treated my children the same,” his mother said. Besides Jose, Jennifer has a 10-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old son. “I’ve never let him know he’s different. But now it’s hitting him that he is. He used to share a room with his brother, but now he has to have his own room because of the machines. He feels lonely.” The third-grader has also missed many days of school due to his illness and must leave his class every two hours to empty his catheter.

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Susie (left) and her mom, Maria, are ‘forever grateful’ for the gift of Angel Bus travel.

This is a guest post by Emily Altmann, a senior communications major at Virginia Wesleyan College in Norfolk, serving as an intern with Mercy Medical Airlift.

When Susie, a recent Angel Bus patient, was diagnosed with Cholangiocarcinoma in August of 2010, options were limited for the 26-year-old, single mother of three.

Cholangiocarcinoma is a relatively rare bile duct cancer that affects the liver’s ability to drain bile into the small intestine.  This type of cancer is typically diagnosed at its more advanced stages and is unresponsive to chemotherapy and radiation, leaving surgery as the only option.

For many years, Susie reported pain but was misdiagnosed.  After the birth of her son and increasingly worse abdominal pains, doctors were able to remove her gallbladder and perform a second biopsy of the tumor.  As it turns out, they said the cancer has likely been affecting her for the last three years.

“After talking with my oncologist and confirming that it was indeed cancer, we began searching for surgeons,” said Susie.  “The surgeon most qualified here in El Paso unfortunately did not feel he could perform the surgery I needed, so I was referred to a doctor at MD Anderson.”

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