BE THE MATCH - You could be someone else’s "Lucky Charm"

Post from Rich Franco over at  MY ADVENTURES WITH MANTLE CELL LYMPHOMA about Luck, a Saint Peregrine medal and being someone else’s lucky charm by being a donor.

One of my favorite lines from a movie is in the film Rocky II. The movie begins where the first Rocky movie ends. Rocky and Apollo Creed just finished a boxing match where they literally beat the heck out of each other. Apollo Creed is declared the winner of the fight. This is followed by both boxers being rushed to the hospital and a scene where the boxers meet in the emergency room. Apollo is beside himself that he almost lost the match to the unknown underdog named Rocky. He approaches Rocky with a verbal attack that concludes with “You are the luckiest man alive”. Rocky looks at his wife Adrian with his broken eye socket and nose and says: “Do I look lucky?”

Here is a YouTube clip of the beginning of the movie. You can find this quote 8 minutes and 17 seconds into the video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olIKs0ZlOOc

It is very funny how we use the word “lucky”. I guess being lucky is a matter of what perspective you have. Back in March I had a post about a great gift my wife gave me for my birthday. It was a Saint Peregrine medal. What I didn't say was that she had it inscribed with the word “Lucky” on the back of it. And in all honesty, I am lucky. I truly feel very lucky that I am scanned on a regular basis and that my relapse was caught so early. I truly feel lucky that I am surrounded by many great and supportive people who love me. And I feel extremely lucky because of all my family and friends who are contacting me and asking me how much they want to me my donor. I cannot tell you how many times a day people ask me “What do I have to do to be your donor; I will do whatever it takes!” How much more lucky could I be than knowing so many people care for me and want to help?

It would be so awesome if finding a donor was that easy… but it is not. I have been told that there is a better chance of winning the lottery than finding a donor among my friends. I have explained to all who have asked me about being a donor is that if they truly want to help, the best thing they could do is to join the donor registry. True, most likely they will not be able to be my donor but maybe they could help someone else.

I did a little research and found the following website that explains how you could become a donor. The website is: http://bethematch.org/

This website explains how to join on-line, how to join in person, what your donor commitment will be, it answers frequently asked questions about being a donor, provides medical guidelines about being a donor, and it addresses myths and facts about donation. If that is not enough they provide a phone number that you could call and get additional information.  The phone number is: 1-800-MARROW-2 or 1-800-627-7692

It certainly couldn't hurt to check out this website. Who knows, maybe you could be someone else’s Lucky Charm.

Exercise-A great way to boost cancer survivor's health

From Cancerwise, MD Anderson Center

By Karen Basen-Engquist, Ph.D.

Earlier this month, during Cancer Survivorship Week, we had our first exercise flash mobs here at MD Anderson. The music began, and doctors, nurses, research staff and survivors spontaneously began dancing. 

It was a lot of fun, but that's not the only reason we did it. We wanted to send the message that exercise can be both fun and beneficial for cancer survivors.

Why should a cancer survivor exercise? 

Cancer survivors should exercise for the same reasons the rest of us should. Exercise reduces the risk of chronic diseases like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, arthritis and cancer. It can help prevent weight gain and improve your mood. 

But those aren't the only reasons cancer survivors should exercise. 

Exercise also curbs fatigue and other symptoms in cancer patients and survivors. In addition, several studies have shown that breast cancer and colon cancer survivors who exercise are less likely to have a recurrence of their cancer. Another recent study showed that prostate cancer survivors who exercised were less likely to die from prostate cancer.

What exercise should I do? 

Research shows that exercise is safe and beneficial for most cancer patients and survivors. The American Cancer Society has published these exercise recommendations:

• Avoid inactivity and return to normal daily activities as soon as possible following your cancer diagnosis.
• Do 150 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise per week.
• Include strength building exercise at least 2 days per week.

Moderate intensity aerobic exercise is activity that gets your heart pumping and makes you breathe harder. Fast walkingis an example. If you are doing aerobic exercise you should be able to talk while you exercise, although you might feel a little out of breath. 

If you're doing vigorous exercise, your heart pumps even faster and you will be breathing hard. You can still talk, but only a few words at a time.

Strength building exercise should involve all major muscle groups - including arms, shoulders, back, abdominals, hips and legs. If you are exercising with weights, start with lighter weights and increase the amount you're lifting gradually.

Patients and survivors with certain conditions and health problems may need to adapt their exercise routine. For example, survivors with peripheral neuropathy (tingling or pain) in their feet or legs should consider exercise with a low risk of falling, such as riding a stationary bicycle. Or if a survivor has severe fatigue, he or she could do lighter exercise of shorter duration -- say, 10 minutes per day -- until fatigue improves. The important thing is to be as active as you can be, and avoid long periods of sitting.

How do I get started? 

Here are some tips for cancer survivors to get started with exercise:

• Start slowly. If you haven't exercised in a while -- or ever -- start with shorter exercise sessions and increase the time you exercise bit by bit. You'll be doing 150 minutes a week in no time!
• Break it up. If you don't have the time or energy for a longer session, try exercising for just 10 minutes. Ten minutes of exercise 3 times a day is just as good as 30 minutes at one time.
• Choose exercise you enjoy. Try different types of exercise, like walking, dancing or biking, to see what you like. If you can't find an exercise you like, pair it with something you do enjoy. For example, you could walk on a treadmill while watching your favorite movie.
• Set specific goals, and keep track of how you do. Your goal at the beginning could be to walk for 15 minutes after lunch on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Keep track of your exercise on a calendar to see progress toward your goal.  
• Don't forget to reward yourself for achieving your exercise goals.  

Exercise is an excellent tool to help you improve your health and recover from cancer. So, find an exercise you enjoy, make a plan, and start moving!

Karen Basen-Engquist, Ph.D., is professor in Behavioral Science and director of the Center for Energy Balance in Cancer Prevention and Survivorship.

Songs of Hope: "Believe In Me" by the Jarvis Sisters

Video: Rascal Flatts Vanderbilt Surgery Center

In honor of all the doctors, nurses, and staff at Vanderbilt's hospitals. We will never forget what you have done for us.

It's A Beautiful Day-India Arie

People Are Awesome 2013

Mary Jo Update #46 - Day+46 Keep On Keepin' On

6/20 BLOOD LABS                                         
WBC:  7.73 thou/uL (3.9-10.7)                                              
PLATELET COUNT:   182 thou/uL (135-371)                  
NEUTROPHIL ABS:  3.93 thou/uL (1.60-8.10)                  
POTASSIUM BLOOD:  4.2 mEq/L (3.3-4.8)                    
MAGNESIUM BLOOD:  2.0 mg/dL (1.8-2.4)    

Mary Jo went to her oncologist here in Louisville on Day+45 yesterday. Her blood levels have progressed to a point where she will not have to go back for blood labs every two weeks until Day+100, as we expected she would. She will only have one more visit with the oncologist before we go back to Vanderbilt on August 19th.

It is hard to believe that 46 days ago, we were in Vanderbilt Hospital, and I had a syringe with one of the 11 bags of Mary Jo's stem cells in my hand giving her new life and a fighting chance to beat Mantle Cell Lymphoma that has been a part of our lives since October, 2009. A lot has happened since then and who knows what else will happen. But, watching Mary Jo's remarkable recovery has been a beautiful thing.

We had dinner with my brother Lou, aka Cookie, and his wife Paula yesterday evening. We went to the Sidebar on Whiskey Row near the Yum Center in downtown Louisville. The Sidebar's specialties are gourmet  hamburgers, craft beer, and a wide selection of Kentucky bourbon. Our younger brother, Paul, who is in the commercial construction business, is a minority owner of the Sidebar. His business partners are lawyers. Thus, the Sidebar name. If you haven't done so already, check the Sidebar out.

It was good to see Cookie and Paula again. They will be celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary on July 6th. I told Paula that I remembered when her and Cookie came to my grandmother's house back in 1962 before Paula's senior prom. They were a beautiful couple then, and they still are.

Their youngest son, Brian, and his wife, Cindy, are moving back to Louisville from Indianapolis this weekend. Brian just finished his residency and fellowship in radiology at University of Indiana Hospitals there. He will be working at Jewish Hospital here.

It is so good to be home with family again. We are looking forward to seeing everyone at my brother, Dan, and his wife, Lynne's house on the 4th of July. I played in the Annual Clergy Day Golf Scramble for deacons and priests this past Monday. Somehow, I won the longest drive contest and a 42" TV in a raffle after the outing. Maybe, I should have went and bought a lottery ticket while I was on a roll. Busy weekend, this weekend. My turn to preach at three Masses, and my son-in-law, John, and my grandson, Johnie, are going to help me stain our deck.

Summer arrived  at 1:04 this morning. It got to 90 today, and it's going to get even hotter next week with the heat index above 100. Our summers here in the Ohio River Valley can be brutal. The Spring here has actually been pretty nice here since we got back from Nashville. Mary Jo turned the air conditioning on about noon today for the first time.


When I got home from golfing today, it was 87 in the house. Obviously, the air conditioning was not working. I checked the outside unit and the compressor was running, but the fan wasn't. I did what I usually do whenever I have no idea how to fix something-I googled it.

Mr. Google said to pull the breaker, and see if the fan will turn freely, then put the breaker back in and see what happens. I did that and the fan worked. I'm not sure if dirt or something had gotten in the fan and bound it up, or if pulling the breaker caused a capacitor to charge which my son-in-law said could be the trouble. Anyway, whatever it was, it is cool in the chateaux for now. Mr. Google came through again. I am looking forward to a long, hot summer with my girl.



I want to thank all of you for your prayers again, and ask you to continue praying that those stem cells of Mary Jo's keep on, keeping on, and she has good results when we go back to see our friends at Vanderbilt in August.

Ibrutinib Continues Strong Showing Against Mantle Cell Lymphoma

 Latest results of Phase 2 study confirm high rate of response, remission

In a major international study led by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the targeted therapy ibrutinib continues to show remarkable promise for the treatment of relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma (MCL).

The most recent interim findings of the 18-center Phase 2 study were published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. Previous interim findings were presented in December 2012 at the 54th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition.

Unprecedented results, fewer side effects

“This oral inhibitor of the Bruton’s tyrosine kinase in the B-cell receptor pathway is the most important breakthrough to date in the treatment of mantle cell lymphoma,” said Michael Wang, M.D., associate professor in MD Anderson’s Departments of Lymphoma and Myeloma and Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Therapy. Wang is lead author of the trial.

“It is an oral drug, taken once a day, and its side effects are not severe. Yet it can achieve more than previous combination chemotherapy approaches. Our results constitute excellent news for our patients and patients around the world.”

The ongoing trial of oral ibrutinib in patients with heavily treated relapsed or refractory MCL has maintained a response rate as high as 70 percent – better than any other single agent ever tested in the challenging disease – with milder side effects than other treatments.

Targeted approach to dangerous disease

MCL is a rare and aggressive B-cell subtype of non-Hodgkin lymphoma that, according to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, accounts for 6 percent of non-Hodgkin cases. Despite high response rates to initial highly toxic combination-drug chemotherapy, patients often relapse.

The B-cell receptor pathway is critical in B-cell lymphoma, and Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) is an essential component of this pathway. Ibrutinib targets the BTK molecule, causing cell death and decreasing cellular migration and adhesion in malignant B-cells.

In this study, patients were given 560 mg daily ibrutinib in continuous 28-day cycles until disease progressed or side effects became intolerable. To date, 111 patients have participated in the study.

Seventy-seven percent had stage 4 disease, and the median number of prior treatments was three.

Ongoing results continue to show promise

In the past six months, ibrutinib has continued to show excellent results. With a median follow-up period of 15 months:

-Overall response rate was 68 percent

-Complete response rate was 21 percent

-Partial response rate 47 percent

Response and complete remission rates improved with longer duration of treatment.

Among the 75 patients who responded, median:

-Response duration was 18 months

-Time to response was two months

-Progression-free survival was 14 months

Most side effects were minor and included diarrhea, fatigue, upper respiratory tract infections, nausea and rash. Grade 3 or higher effects included low white cell blood counts, anemia and diarrhea.

Next steps

Wang believes further investigation of ibrutinib as a first line therapy and in combination with other targeted therapies and traditional cytotoxic agents is essential.

“This drug, which is the safest option we have for MCL, shows unprecedented durable single agent activity,” he said. “The favorable toxicity profile also implies that ibrutinib provides the opportunity for less intense and more effective regimens. The long-term impact of ibrutinib definitely warrants further clinical testing.”

University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center

Lenalidomide Produces Promising Results in Relapsed/Refractory Mantle Cell Lymphoma

By Jia Ruan, MD

Mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) is an aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) characterized by a short remission duration to standard therapies, poor prognosis, and median overall survival of 4-5 years. The immunomodulatory agent lenalidomide has consistently exhibited a tolerable level of safety in multiple phase II studies of relapsed/refractory aggressive NHL and MCL post-bortezomib.  At the recent 2013 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, Dr. Thomas E. Witzig of the Mayo Clinic presented results from a combined analysis of multiple phase II trials testing the efficacy and safety of single-agent lenalidomide in relapsed/refractory MCL patients.

Of the 206 patients with relapsed/refractory MCL the overall response rate with lenalidomide was 32%, with a median time to response of 2.1 months and median duration of response of 16.6 months. Kaplan-Meier estimates for median progression free survival and overall survival were 5.4 and 23.9 months, respectively. Mean daily dose of lenalidomide was 21 mg.  Grade 3/4 adverse events included neutropenia (44%), thrombocytopenia (29%), anemia (11%), and fatigue (7%), other side effects included tumor flare reaction (7%), venous thromboembolic events (7%), and invasive second primary malignancies (3%).

This study adds to the growing body of literature supporting the promise of lenalidomide for treating patients with MCL.  At the Weill Cornell Lymphoma Program these breakthroughs are augmented by our own trials exploring the utility of lenalidomide in treating patients with MCL.

The Weill Cornell Lymphoma Program is now enrolling patients in a new, investigator-initiated phase II study of lenalidomide in combination with rituximab in patients with previously untreated MCL (NCT01472562). The purpose of the study is to test the synergy of combining lenalidomide, a biological agent that targets the tumor micro-environment, with rituximab, an antibody that targets lymphoma cells. By including a maintenance phase of lenalidomide and rituximab therapy, we hope to improve treatment effectiveness and maintain quality of life for patients.

Read entire article here

A Father Song by Brianna Haynes

25 Things I Learned From My Dad

Life is a mystery. Don't try to figure it out, just enjoy it.

Often times, the quietest person in a group is the most interesting one.

Turn off the lights when you leave a room.

If you watch ants in a colony, you'll have answers to how humans can live cooperatively and peacefully.

It's easier start a war than it is to end it.

Laughter cures almost anything.

Fancy houses and new cars don't make the man or the woman.

Be on time.

Practice moderation in all things.

It's possible for plaids and checks to look good together.

Don't buy on credit.

No good deed goes unpunished.

Tolerate differences in all people.

Reading history can help us avoid mistakes.

Life is a circle. Just as space is curved, so is time. There is no beginning or end.

Always get a name when dealing with someone over the phone.

Loveable people are easy to love; it's the unloveable ones who need our love.

Never trust a turn signal.

It takes twice as long to do something wrong.

Ping Pong is a competitive sport.

Never litter.

Traveling is the best education.

Get along with your neighbors.

The Golden Rule is the only one that you have to remember.

Leave the world better than you found it.

h/t Elizabeth Schaff, Louisville

Happy Father's Day - "Dad Life"

Mary Jo Update #45 - Day+39 And All Is Well

Mary Jo is now at Day+39 since her transplant and new birthday on May 6th. It does not seem like we have only been home for two weeks. It didn't take long to get back into our daily routine.

Mary Jo is doing well. She is going to her oncologist every two weeks for blood labs and check ups, and she has an appointment in August with a cardiologist here in Louisville to evaluate the heart medicine that she has been taking sinces the A-fib episode during the BCNU chemo treatment before her transplant.

Mary Jo walks everyday and has started working in earnest on the six quilts that she has left to make for the grandkids. She has completed one. The other day she did notice some swelling and discoloration on her left ankle. She didn't remember bumping it on anything. We're thinking that it could be the onset of stage 1 lymphadema. She is going to have her oncologist look at it next week.

Mary Jo's next appointment at Vanderbilt is on August 19th for her Day+100 check up, which will consist of a meeting with the transplant doctor, a PET Scan, the dreaded bone marrow biopsy, and a pulmonary function test.

Our welcome home by our family and friends has been wonderful. There have been many hugs and wonderful dinners prepared for us. We missed many family and church celebrations in the five weeks that we were in Nashville. We were so happy to be home in time for Mary Jo's great niece's wedding last Friday night. Jessica graduated from UofL Med School in May and got married in June. It was great to be there with our family to celebrate her marrige to Michael.

It didn't take long to get back into the swing of things at church. I do perceiver interviews for men who apply to be deacons in our diocese and beyond. I have an interview scheduled here next week, and the formation director for the Diocese of Lafayette, IN has contacted me about doing some interviews up there later on this year. The deacon class that we are interviewing for here in Louisville will be ordained in 2020. Hard to believe, but I guess that it will be here before we know it.

This Father's Day weekend is going to be a busy one. We lost one of our parishioners, John, the other day to COPD. John was a wonderful father and grandfather and will be missed very much. I will be praying the Rosary with the Knights of Columbus this evening at the funeral home, and preaching tomorrow at John's funeral Mass. Saying goodbye to Dad and Granddad on Father's Day weekend will be very difficult for John's family. Please keep them in your prayers.



Our kids and grandkids are coming to our house tomorrow to celebrate Father's Day. We also hope to celebrate a UofL Cardinal victory in the College Baseball World Series. It has been a great year to be a Cards fan. BCS bowl victory in football, National Championship in men's basketball, National Runnerup in women's basketball, and the baseball team in the CWS. Has any school had a better year in sports? We are looking forward to joining our friends in the ACC next year.

On Sunday, one of our neighboring parishes, Saint Michael's, will be dedicating a new 1,500 seat church. It will be a great celebration for the Church in our area. We dedicated our new church in Mount Washington on March 27, 2010. The service to dedicate a new church is a beautiful, but a very long ceremony with the bishop assisted by a deacon doing most of the work. It will be good to sit back, and be able to watch the ceremony. I was too busy assisting the Archbishop to fully appreciate what was going on at our church dedication back in 2010.

On Monday, we will have our annual Clergy Day celebration in the Archdiocese. Part of the celebration is a golf scramble. I am in Archbishop Kurtz's foursome this year. Praying that I will bring my A game, if I have one.

Thanks for your continuing prayers for total recovery and long remission for Mary Jo.

Happy Father's Day to all of you Fathers out there. I lost my Dad 27 years ago. I think about him every day.

My Toxic Lover

Karin Diamond from over at eyes peeled | always wrote this essay personifying the cancer within her which focuses on the diseased relationship that she has with her toxic lover.

A COMPLICATED RELATIONSHIP

If it sounds familiar it's because it's born from a blog entry I wrote back in 2011, when recently out of my allogeneic stem cell transplant and learning what it was like to be in recovery, thinking that my cancer relationship was finally over. With this reworked piece, I honed in on our complicated relationship status and reworked it to focus on the continued stresses my lover brings.

As always, if you like it, please share it on your Facebook pages, "Like" it, Tweet it, comment here or on the Huffington Post page itself. I'd love to hear your thoughts! Thanks for reading.

I'm coming to terms with having refractory cancer -- the kind that keeps on giving no matter what treatments we throw at it. I'm working at incorporating the disease into my life so that it doesn't take over my life. No matter how badly I wish it wasn't hosting inside me, it is, and I have to deal with it. The relationship that's grown between Hodgkin's Lymphoma (aka Hodgkin) and me is like one with a toxic ex-lover, the guy that just won't go away. On Facebook, our relationship status would read: "It's complicated."

Hodgkin is destructive and abusive but somehow we keep finding each other. I fall back into its strangling arms. I dig my way out with one tough treatment after the next, think I've moved on, then it -- he -- is back with a vengeance, overtaking me. There is nowhere I can hide, so I have to dance with the cancer, adapt with it. I also have to give tough love back until we can find common ground amid the battles and the tender moments.

Cancer, its treatments, and the very small world it puts me in at times, are what's been familiar for so long now. There is a sick, unwanted comfort found in that space. Having ridden out the side effects of nearly 30 chemo drugs in a variety of combinations, radiation, two autologous and a donor stem cell transplant, immunotherapy, and several early phase clinical drug trials, it's the aches that are familiar. The fatigue is familiar. The nausea, the mood swings, the foggy-headedness are familiar.

What's not familiar is when the treatments are working and I'm given time free from cancer's stranglehold. It's at these times that I don't feel Hodgkin's breath at the back of my neck, teasing with kisses and threatening a comeback. When he stops forcing himself on me, I'm able to take a deep breath without coughing, wake up without pain, or crack a joke with perfect timing. The fear of his cold touch and threatening grip subside.

I don't realize how much Hodgkin is holding me back until we're on "a break." When I have the upper hand in the relationship, all parts of me feel aligned again. It's bliss run rampant. It's then that I build up my strength to be ready for whatever our next round brings. I know from our history that he's never gone for long. Even so, when he does recoil, I ache for a scenario where while he's down I've moved so far past him that he can't catch up.

My relationship with cancer will forever be evolving. I hope for a clean break. Yet, even when we say goodbye for good, it will take a long time to heal from the forever imprints our time together has made on my being -- a tattoo inked during a four-year (and counting) bender.

Read entire article here

Mormon Tabernacle Choir's Concert For Girl With Concert

This is about the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on tour in Memphis, Tennessee when at St. Jude's Hospital there a little girl had been admitted with an aggressive form of brain cancer and had her first chemo treatment, which made it so she shouldn't be in crowds and couldn't attend the Mormon Choir's concert the night before. Somehow her family sent a request, that some of the choir members, maybe, could meet the young girl at a hotel lobby. Look here and see what happened, when the little family, so distraught with their daughter's cancer, walked into the lobby! It is so wonderful, and their wise choices of songs so beautiful!



h/t Larry Garwood

REFLECTIONS ON AGING

~ Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it.

~ The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.

~ Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me, I want people to know "why" I look this way. I've traveled a long way and some of the roads weren't paved.

~ When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to youth, think of Algebra.

~ I don't know how I got over the hill without getting to the top.

~ One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that it is such a nice change from being young.

~ Being young is beautiful, but being old is comfortable.

~ Long ago when old men cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft. Today it's called golf.

~ If you don't learn to laugh at trouble, you won't have anything to laugh at when you are old.

~ One must wait until evening to see how splendid the day has been.

today'sTHOT============================

Never agree to plastic surgery if the doctor's office is full of portraits by Picasso.

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Mary Jo Update #44 - The girl's shopping again!

Hello, everyone. I just wanted to let you know how we are doing. We got home at around noon on Saturday. When we pulled in the driveway, we noticed a balloon near the driveway. After we went in and looked out, we found that our neighbors had decorated the front of our condo.

We have the best neighbors any could ever wish for. Our neighbors Ginny and Pat collected our mail while we were gone. Our mail nearly filled one paper grocery bag. Ginny, Pat, and,  another neighbor, Larry did the balloons. Larry's wife, Sarah, made the sign. It felt good to pull into the driveway after being away for so long, and we felt the love of our neighbors through the sign and decorations.

Our neighbors are some of the best cooks that you would ever want to meet, too. We haven't had to cook since we have been home. Ginny and Pat had dinner for us the first night home. Betty, Nita, and Sibby have brought us dinner the other nights. I think they are trying to erase the memory of all those frozen dinners that we ate while we were at Vanderbilt from our minds. They are doing a very good job of it.

We went to Mass at our church in Mount Washington on Saturday. Newly ordained, Father Nick Brown, was having a Mass of Thanksgiving for his ordination, and for the last year that he spent with us at our two parishes. It was a Mass of Thanksgiving for Mary Jo and I, too. It was so good to see all of our friends again. To shake their hands, give them hugs, and thank them for all of their prayers and support while we were gone.

I wish that we could give each and every person who prayed for Mary Jo and I a personal thank you. I cannot express in words on this blog what everyone's prayers and support have meant to us since last October when Mary Jo's lymphoma became aggressive, and especially since our odyssey at Vanderbilt began back in April.

Mary Jo is doing well. She is resting much better since we have been home away from our college kid neighbors, and Vanderbilt's Stat Flight helicopters that seemed to spend more time taking off and landing, than they did on the ground.

Mary Jo must be feeling pretty good. She has went shopping two days in a row. I'm feeling much better too. I have played golf two days in a row. I am amazed at how well I have played since I have been home. I played to my handicap yesterday, and four under my handicap today. I figured I would probably be mostly whiffing the first few times I played.

Our course is in great shape, and it feels great to be out chasing that little white ball again. I don't know what Mark Twain was thinking when he said that "golf was the ruination of a good walk."

Mary Jo's great niece, Jessica, is getting married on Friday night. Jessica graduated from the University of Louisville Medical School last month. She will doing her residency in pediatric oncology at Kosair Children's Hospital here in Louisville. Jessica will be a great doctor, and what a great medical specialty to go into.

Since Mary Jo cannot eat from buffets. She most likely will not be able to eat anything but cake at the reception. I guess that isn't such a bad thing, though. I will probably use Marie Antoinette's line a few times "let them eat cake". I guess fear of the guillotine kept anyone from reminding Marie that if they didn't have bread, they probably didn't have cake, either.

Mary Jo has an appointment with her primary doctor on Thursday. Dr. Barrett is going to recommend a cardiologist for Mary Jo to meet with here in Louisville. She has an appointment with her oncologist on Friday. Dr. Bhupalam will track Mary Jo's progress until we go back to Vanderbilt on August 19th for her Day+100 visit. When she will have a PET Scan, bone marrow biopsy and pulmonary function test. I was going to suggest that she needed a colonoscopy, too. But, Mary Jo said that I would pay dearly for that.

Thanks again for your prayers and support. Please continue to pray for Mary Jo's total recovery and a long period of remission. God's blessings on all of you.