Praise! Praise! Praise!

Dear Family and Friends,

Praise! Praise! Praise! Cody had a great day today. He was up and about and he actually ate some food and kept it down; His white cells and platelet counts are up. In addition, his MRI showed that his tumors are smaller! Huge victories on the mountain of challenges.

Amidst the challenges added to the cancer treatment, he remains with a good and spunky spirit. With all of these trials, he has developed a great sense of humor. A very needed and joyful bright light. He does not complain at all. Since March 23, the start of the recurrence, he has had only 2 small melt downs...and he apologized after. He is amazing.

This week he had a 2 hour MRI, which normally is a breeze for him, however, this time around, he still had the packing in his nose from the sinusitis surgery so breathing with this apparatus clamping his head down was difficult so the experience was over the top. This one traumatized him....if he wasn't claustrophobic, he is now. He did say, for the next one he wants to be sedated.

The days start running together so I don't remember which day he had what done to..but he had a CT scan of his sinus area one day, a CT scan of his lungs another, the MRI Tuesday, then a biopsy of his lungs today.(He is beginning to glow in the dark).Saturday morning he will have a procedure to install a catheter in his groin area so they can start harvesting his stem cells. He is not looking forward to this. After the catheter is installed, they will start the harvesting, which will take any where from 1 - 6 days. They run the machine for about 4 hours a day to collect until they have what they need, then freeze them. On the last 3 cycles they give them back to him "to recover his bone marrow".

In the next couple of days we should have the results from the biopsy to determine what is growing on his lungs. We do know that it is not a tumor. Next week we should also get a new road map of his treatment as the original one is too much for him to handle. His immune system was so compromised with the first cycle that he got a strep infection in his blood, sinusitis, the mystery thing on his lungs and an unexplainable rash over his entire body. His strength and tenacity are beyond comprehension.

Several people have inquired about blood and platelet donations. We got the paper work going and Monday I should have the contact information available and will send in the next update.

Thank you so much for your continued prayers for peace, strength and God's presence for the three of us. He is listening.

All His,

The Days