Matt & Dani Fontanesi
Newlyweds navigating life, cancer, and life after cancer.
NOTE: This page was written a few years ago when Matt and I were still living in hospitals and isolation. It's no longer applicable to our lives, but I left it up so people could get a snapshot of what our lives were like at the time.
Visiting Us
If you'd like to visit us, we'd love to see you! Just get in touch, and we can sort out the details.
TO HELP YOU PLAN YOUR VISIT, HERE ARE A FEW VERY IMPORTANT THINGS YOU'LL NEED TO REMEMBER BEFORE YOU COME:
1. We can't predict our schedule. The best we can do is give you a (non-)educated guess about what we think our "plans" will be on any given day or week -- whether we'll be in the hospital or in outpatient treatment, whether Matt will be in isolation (i.e., not allowed to leave our outpatient housing or our hospital unit), whether Matt will be feeling well enough for visitors on any given day, whether the doctors will allow people to see him that day
day, etc. We can certainly give you our best guess about these things, but nothing is set in stone these days.
2. A cold, flu, or any other bug could kill Matt right now. We know you love Matt and want to see him, so please help keep him alive by not bringing any bugs with you. His body is severely immunocompromised right now (meaning he's not able to fight off any bug, infection, etc), so if you think you might possibly have any sort of bug, please cancel or postpone your visit until you know for sure that you're well. Even if you've just flown in from across the country and spent $1,000 on your plane ticket and 5 hours traveling, and two minutes before you're supposed to meet up with us, all of a sudden you start sniffling or coughing or feeling a bit run down like you might be coming down with something, please abort the mission! Do not visit us if you could possibly have any sort of bug. Help save his life!
3. Expect weird rules when you get here. Even if Matt is "well" enough when you get here to not be on house arrest in our patient housing ("isolation" is the technical medical word for it), there will still be other weird rules for you/us to follow -- like wiping down the toilet seat with antibacterial wipes after you use the bathroom or other strange things. Also, even if Matt's not in the hospital or on house arrest when you get here, we still can't be around "crowds" (meaning, we can't be around people we don't know since they could have a bug). So if we go out to a restaurant (which we really enjoy when we're allowed to do so!), we should go somewhere with outside seating and should go during "non-peak" hours to minimize his exposure to crowds. Don't worry -- we know a few places like this around the area!
4. There will only be about a 7-10 day window (somewhere between Oct 18th and Nov 3rd) during the next 4-6 months where we won't be in the hospital or in isolation in our patient housing. So if you come outside this window, you'll have to visit us in the hospital or in our outpatient housing. (Also, please remember that we can't guarantee that we'll be out of the hospital during this time.) Please don't let this discourage you, though, as we love having visitors! Our outpatient housing is our own little private apartment, so please feel free to drop by for a meal, a glass of wine, or a cup of coffee -- we'd love to have you!
We really hope these rules and warnings don't scare you off because there is nothing we enjoy more than visitors!
Many months of isolation is very lonely, and we have a long road ahead of us, so please come visit us! If you have any doubts or questions about anything, just give us a call!
We hope you'll come visit soon!
xoxo
Dani & Matt