In which we turn on to a darker and longer road.

On Thursday the 13th of January we headed down to New York for a second opinion consultation with Jeffery Allen, Director of Pediatric Neuro-Oncology at New York University Medical Center. We three were cheered by the smoothness of the morning commute. We left behind the 20 inches of cold snow in Ashfield and headed south in two cars, leaving my car in Northampton. Our plans change nearly daily as new information comes in and Orion had already been scheduled to have a mediport installed (and I use that word deliberately) at 7 am on Friday at MGH in Boston. So we hatched a plan to have Sally and Orion do that and have me return to Ashfield. There was little traffic and after fumbling around Old Greenwich for a parking spot we jumped on a train to Grand Central with a minute to spare.

We ate our sandwiches in silence looking out at the bright blue skies and the increasingly dirty and crowded streets. Walking out from GCS we headed south down Lexington, catching glimpses of the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building gleaming in the sunshine high above everyone's heads.

When we reached the pediatric oncology building of the Langone Medical Center of NYU we were jarred once again by Orion in a pediatric setting. He has hair sprouting from his face and he towers over everyone else in the waiting room, including the adults.

There are plenty of people to study and smile over. There is an Asian couple, their baby son wearing a T-shirt that says "Big Boy" (he was obese) being fed cookies and apple juice by his fussing mother and completely ignored by the stylishly coiffed dad playing video games on his phone. Later a nurse came out and jabbed Big Boy with with a Chemo IV line. Breathtaking to see.

Another couple, perhaps in their 30's sat apart from each other. The woman, apparently suffering from brain cancer (her head wrapped in a stylish but otherwise not quite right black hat) talked on her cell phone while her orthodox husband kissed and stroked his payot hair locks.

A very tall and thin Hispanic boy, perhaps Orion's age, stood with his Chemo IV tree gripped in his hand.

Another couple nervously stuffed cupcakes and juice into their young daughter, bound in a wheel chair, telling everyone that she was constantly hungry.

In a side room a manic clown raced around trying to amuse all the children, dressed in those typical bright colors and exaggerated sizes so appealing to the dreaded clowns. As he finished his routine a woman dressed as a faerie appeared, while volunteers, older women, variously looked like Mother Westwind or simply carted around baskets of sweets to ply anxious children.

A woman describing herself as a social worker came out and grabbed us offering help with abuse and finances to our speechless faces. Perhaps we looked like country folk, not to be confused with the disadvantaged. She finally got that we were sane, non-suicidal, and financially equipped to deal with brain cancer.

Finally we were brought into Dr. Allen's offices but were first subjected to a pleasant enough, but not up to the energy and competence we were used to, pediatric neuro-oncologist Fellow from Montreal. Overhead a vent fan made loud and annoying noises that she seemed not to hear.

Allen ushered us into a family room were we all watched in amazement and horror at his frame by frame analysis of Orion's brain and spinal MRI. He started off dismissing some of the concerns at MGH on spinal aritfacts but then became animated with the brain images. Here we saw the whole plan of the evolution of the human brain from the hypothalamus and pineal glands at the brain stem on out to the magnificent cerebellum and cerebrum. Then he traced the outlines of Orion's brain cancer and its beginnings on the Pineal gland and spreading tendrils into the brain itself and on into the ventricles. Large and disseminated. Cancerous in all its aspects.

He moved on to an analysis of the cerebral spinal fluid taken with a lumbar puncture done on Monday. The worst diagnosis of non-germinomatous multiple tumors.

He cheerily turned his smile to us and said, not to worry, these can be cured but you will have to be tough and determined and give no quarter and no comfort to these enemies. His good cheer that more than fifty percent of such cases are "cured" gave the three of us little comfort. When asked about the deleterious effects on the brain he said, you will still be smarter than 90% of Americans. Small or no comfort there.

So now we are faced with up to six months of the strongest chemo protocol and three months of radiation with only a flip of the coin odds for success.

Orion, ever the brave and gracious man, hugged me as he left for Boston, saying, "thanks for everything you have done for me so far". I was struck that he now seemed taller than me.