Praise the Lord for all the many answered prayers this has been the best day yet……Noel feeing relief of all his bothersome side effects not yet gone but so much better…We had an early start with blood work at the Dana Farber Cancer clinic….then appointment with Dr Soiffer, Noel’s Doctor, one of the top guys here for Noel’s disease. He said looks like we are on track with white cell count going up, also the platelets. Red cell count a little low today so ordered him a unit of red for a boost by infusion. Said engraftment is a little slow but that is typical for Primary Myelofribrosis so no worries there. He felt and measured Noel’s spleen and that seems already to have reduced in size. He said Noel needed to have bloodwork done Friday with a review appointment and one on Monday too. Then it looks like we shall be heading home to Glens Falls on Tuesday, after a month here it will be great to be home……of course we do have to face weekly appointments back here for some time to come. But that has yet to be worked out.

So it is a day to give thanks and praise and we do, as we move on towards the plus 30 day mark and onward………..please give thanks with us for all the blessings of the last month…not least that we know we can continue to stay here at Hope Lodge until Tuesday, accommodation here is highly sort after and not always available. To move to a hotel would have been no fun.

As Noel’s hair has been falling out for day’s now, today at the Friend’s Place ( for hats and wigs, scarves etc) at the DFCI they gave Noel a hat great hat….but what will Toby say?
it is a bright red Red Sox baseball cap…..but still great to cover his head. Go Yankies!

Another cause for praise, yesterday our granddaughter Charlotte went to see her oncologist at Albany Medical Center for her 6 month check up and besides being a brave girl getting bloodwork and a scan done she is doing great, still cancer free and moved up to 12 month appointments. she will be celebrating her 5th birthday on July 12th….for a cancer survivor it is all about more birthdays…..

When we were in the hospital we heard stories of how a lot of the bone marrow/stem cells comes from Germany, where it was said donors receive large payments….I did not think this could be true so I wrote to both the US and German organizations to ask… Had a reply… Neither the American or the German one pays, it is all collected from volunteers and all their costs are covered by the recipients health insurance…so it turned out to be an urban legend… I am pleased to say.

You can volunteer to be a donor Check it out at www.bethematch.org

Please continue to pray for Noel’s journey, still a long roard ahead….and please continue to follow our story and leave us messages everyone is very important to us and an encouragement to us. God bless you.