August 24

Dear Family and Friends,

 

John's Hopkins has changed Shannon's admission to Sept 6th rather than Aug 30th.  This delay will allow her a much needed extended mental health time, more time to boost her immune system, work on liver cleansing, and the extra time needed to regain more of her muscle tone. Again I see this as God's intervention in allowing Shannon to enter this last phase in better health. 

 

A request - does anyone have the DVD Anne of Green Gables or the other ones in this series that we could borrow?  We were introduced to these by a lovely family staying at J.H. the same time we were and let us borrow theirs. Shannon and I just started watching it during the last couple days of our last stay and found them very charming.

 

Thank you for all your prayers and continue to pray that God will succeed in His interventions into Shannon's treatment!

 

God Bless,

Bonnie

August 22, 2007

Dear Friends and Family,

After ending up in the hospital last Thursday with a rather serious fever from a transfusion, we planned to settle in at Hopkins for the next 10 days / 2 wks until Shannon’s white blood cell count recovered. Well, 4 days later, Monday night, Shannon was discharged. God is amazing!

With her counts up and looking very healthy, the decision has been made to admit Shannon on August 30th for the Bone Marrow Transplant. We proceed with joy, but also with trepidation and anxious hearts because soon we will know whether she has been cured. The first week (next Thursday) begins with aggressive chemo treatments. The transplant follows, then the difficulty (assuming there’s no serious infection) is one of enduring the potential severity of Graft vs. Host disease. Shannon’s hospitalization will continue for approximately 6-8 weeks, during which time either Greg or I will stay with her 24-7 due to the bodily and mental stress that she’ll endure.

Please pray that her body is clear of cancer after the transplant. Due to the aggressive and deceptive nature of her cancer there is the possibility that it will reappear again quickly. If it does, the treatment will be decided at that time and we will place ourselves at the mercy of our Lord as we have tried to do so far. It is quite difficult for us to face the reality of soon knowing which path her cancer will take. Our hope is that the Lord has many future plans for Shannon and for the rest of us (including all of you) who are walking this journey with her. As parents we must not be as the Rich Young Man and walk away sad after Jesus lets us know what we must give away. Rather we must give away our dreams and allow God to reveal his plan for us. Pray that God has a significant plan for Shannon to participate in His apostolic works through the Church and that we too will have the courage to give part of ourselves away so that God’s plan can be brought to fruition through us in what ever vocation we have been given.

Here is Shannon enjoying God’s blessings through the tender and constant care of her nurses. Note: Jesus in the Divine Mercy image watching over Shannon’s shoulder as she studies. (Dr. “D” – she’s writing her World Literature short essays!). As you can see by her joy we have found the presence of God through so many people that he has brought into our lives! Each and every one of you, through your prayers and other kind gestures have revealed the living Body of Christ.

Thank you for all your prayers.
God Bless,
Bonnie and Greg

July 2007

Friends and Family,

God hears your prayers for Shannon! Thank you everyone!

Last week, 2 days prior to our scheduled clinic visit for chemo, our doctor (Dr. Eric) phoned and said ... he just had to call because he had several emotional experiences this day over blood results and couldn't wait for our visit. Additionally he wanted to assure us that these results were not of his doing but clearly God's hand.

The 2 pieces of good news he shared were 1) Shannon's cancer cells had gone from 45% to 1% (totally unexpected reduction in such a short period) and 2) one of family members is a matched donor (the odds were heavily against this)! I could go into a lot of scientific jargon to explain how incredibly good this news is, but the bottom line is that Shannon's cancer is so aggressive that time could be our enemy, so this is a miracle!

In this race against time, this is the first of several hurdles that we must clear. The next is for Shannon to continue to endure the high intensity chemo that's causing hair loss, weight loss, and many other unpleasant side effects. Those to come are the need for her to be in complete remission just prior to her bone marrow transplant, then her body's acceptance of the bone marrow graft (which will be as grueling as her chemo), and finally our ability to complete the first half of her senior year through home schooling.

Please continue your prayers for the hurdles to come and for Shannon to be able to tolerate her chemo. We've recently had several really bad chemo-days.

Through this experience we have come to see the presence of Christ in all of humanity, not just in the goodness of all of you but literally in all people, and have realized how blind we had been to this truth in the past. The blessings being poured over us daily still leave us amazed.

Attached is a photo of Shannon with her doctors - Dr. Arceci on the left (Shannon calls him St. Francis) and Dr. Eric Schafer on the right (known by Shannon as 'J.D.', the doctor on "Scrubs")