Wednesday 4/20/11 - John David

If you haven't heard through Facebook or word of mouth, we got some good news yesterday! Noah had his MRI yesterday morning, brain and spine, and Dr. Reddy's words were, "It looks good, it's what we wanted it to look like." The tumor has not grown during or since the radiation treatment. It wasn't a very clear MRI, but she said the next one (in 3 months) will show more how the radiation has affected the treatment area. So, Noah will not have anymore treatment until the next MRI...and hopefully he won't need anymore after that. Right now he is considered "stable." We are praying for and believing that his MRI's will continue to be stable, and eventually clear, that the radiation has done its job, and eventually his MRIs will be spread 6 months, then one year apart. While praying for these things, we are completely aware of the threat of a recurrence. After Noah's last surgery, the tumor grew to 3 cm over a 3 month period. We are praying that the radiation treatment will prevent this from happening again. So he isn't in the clear yet, and we still need you to petition to our Father for complete healing! 
The past couple of weeks have been amazing for us. We returned from the Orlando area one week ago Wednesday. Noah's Make-A-Wish trip was awesome and we all had a great time. We stayed at Give Kids the World, which is an AMAZING place for children with special needs/serious illness to stay with their families and be spoiled for 6 days! Noah received a gift just about every day, swam in the pool and played in the splash pad, "drove" the train, played putt-putt golf and video games, ate ice cream any time of day he wanted to (hey, it was vacation!)...he LOVED it. It truly earned the name he gave it - "the fun place." Every Thursday there is Christmas, and Santa and Mrs. Clause come to visit with gifts for each child. Wednesday morning they offer horse rides, other mornings certain characters come from Disney and Universal to greet the children, they even have a carousel, Noah's favorite. It's a magical place, and I've described it so some as "an Emmaus walk on steroids." If you're part of the Emmaus community you'll understand that statement. Most everyone who works at the GKTW Village is a volunteer, and the love and compassion that you receive from the volunteers is just amazing. While eating breakfast one morning, a volunteer server approached me and John and just said, "has anyone told you how special you are lately? We all know that your little guy is special, but the sacrifices you make to care for him need to be recognized." It really touched our hearts. And man, they think of EVERYTHING! We were given tickets to all the major attractions in Orlando: all the Disney Parks, Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure, and Sea World. With all the fun things to do at the Village AND all the attraction tickets, we stayed quite busy. But it was a super fun and fulfilling type of busy. We made some great memories, got lots of pictures, and most importantly, Noah had a blast. He asks me everyday if we can go back to Give Kids the World. And we can, once a year, to spend the day playing and swimming, to remember what a great week we spent there. They have also given us a one-day pass to many different parks/attractions around the country for the next year. Needless to say, we will be doing lots of traveling before they expire, our first trip being to Six Flags in ATL. And I have to mention that this entire experience was made possible by generous donations to not only GKTW, but to Make-A-Wish. I've really never felt so much gratitude and humility for what has been done for my family...the past year and a half has been a very hard, but amazing journey of faith, hope, and love and most days I walk around just overwhelmed by the love of Christ made evident through His people. 
The Saturday after we returned from Noah's wish trip was the "Saddle up for Noah" fundraiser at P&L Farms, hosted by Larry and Pam Berzett and a slew of other volunteers. It was a cold day for April, but it had a great turnout and was a huge success. So many people worked so hard to put the event together and we are forever grateful! My love tank has been filled to overflowing after having so many people love and support us over the past few weeks. 
Below are a few pictures from our trip. There are funny stories with a few of them that I will add soon. So, here they are, hope you can see what a great time we had!!!