LIGHT THE NIGHT

Hi everyone,

Wow, I know it's been a while, but we have been in a whirlwind for weeks now. I hardly know where to begin. I've been very busy b/c my Dad was hospitalized 2 weeks ago. He came home Friday, but is still going to need visiting nurses and physical therapists. He was diagnosed w/ poly-myalgia rheumatica, which is basically an inflammatory disese that affects the muscles and joints and causes severe weakness. Luckily it responds well to steroids and he has shown a vast improvement. As most of you know I'm from Scranton and my parents still live there, so my brother and I have been going back and forth. Thank goodness I have 2 great cousins, Leo and Pat who have equally wonderful wives, Mary Lou and Maureen, and they have been huge godsends to Tom and me. Now my Mom has been scheduled for cataract surgery in October, but thankfully that is done on an outpt. basis and should be routine(I'm knocking wood right now). And I have learned a thing or two about cataract surgery over the last few years...no comments from the MSC peanut gallery please...so maybe we can skip the post-op instructions and go straight to breakfast.

What else...oh yeah, Bob and I had our convalidation ceremony on Sept 4th, at the chapel in Corpus Christi Church. We were blessed w/ beautiful weather and doubly blessed to share it w/ our families. Afterward we had a lovely lunch at the Wm. Penn, and we wanted to thank all of you who sent Congratulation blogs and cards.

Now our good news...Bob and I met w/ Dr. L at HUP 2 weeks ago and she's happy with his overall status. His counts are holding, albeit the platelets and white count are on the low side, but high enough that Bob is able to get out and about. The good news is that in the first tier of matching on the bone marrow registry Bob has 700 hits. This is an incredibly high number and a good foreboding of a complete match. They will continue to add more and more factors into the computer, and keep whittling down the numbers until they have someone who is a perfect match and, God willing, be able to be Bobs' stem cell donor. They told us to expect Bob to be ready for admission sometime in late Oct. early Nov. So please pray for a complete match for Bob, as it improves the chances of a successful transplant.

I have one last thing I wanted to share. Some of you know about this already from reading Debs' blog, so please bear w/ the repetition. There is a walk taking place soon to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society called LIGHT THE NIGHT. I am going to cut and paste an e-mail from my niece Megan who is doing the walk in honor of Bob and our girl Deb T. You can also read about it yourselves if you'd rather by going to their website....www.lightthenight.org. I'm asking anyone who can to sponsor Meg or if you're up for it, to do the walk yourselves. There are several walks in our area coming up. Megan is doing the one in Chester County. I had planned on joining her, but have to put that on hold for now, as I'm pretty sure I will need to be in Scranton than. So here's the e-mail Meg sent out:

"For one beautiful, illuminating night, hope doesn't just flicker, it floats."

Hey everyone...

As most of you may already know two people that I am very close to, are battleing LEUKEMIA- as I am typing this! I have decided to put this email out to all of you to see if anyone will join me in doing this walk... It is called 'Light the Night'. You can visit it at www.lightthenight.org . I am very interested in doing this and would GREATLY APPRECIATE the company of you ALL. I'm sure some of you may also know someone close or maybe just an acquintance, that has battled this disease. It is definitely a great cause and we can all do it together and have fun! Afterwards we can go out drinking (or 'talking'...) because we will have just burned off about a million calories!!! Okay probably only about 100 calories, but hey... that's still one Miller Lite!

Since I am back in WC I have decided to do the Chester County Walk on October 14th... 5pm registration and the walk begins at 7pm. If you can't make it there are other walks...

Bucks County: Sept. 24/ Scranton: Sept.30/ Philly: Sept.30/ Mont. County: Oct.21...

*** If anyone is interested in doing one of these walks let me know and I'll come***

*** The more the merrier, please pass this along ***

***Pass this along to your companies,
they might be interested in giving or spon. a team***

Thanks Gals and Guys, and if you can't make it / are going to immediately trash this please keep my Uncle Bob and Debbie in your prayers!!!

LOVE,

MEG aka NOONER