It is so refreshing to hear some good news from the family! We were just informed that my dad, Servando’s cancer is only at stage one!!! We praise God for his care for him and protection! We pray daily for the Sandoval family’s health both physically and spiritually.  Servando will still likely need surgery. However, the cancer is small and slow moving so they told him he could potentially wait ten years from now to have cancer removed! He definitely does not want to wait that long! Dad was already so anxious to even hear what stage cancer he had and what his options were. It was cute because he showed up at his appointment a week early having confused the dates, and his doctor “happen” to be available to see him, even though he wasn’t supposed to be there! Praise God! His doctor gave him a month to think about his options.  We would ask for prayer for him to have wisdom and peace in making this decision.

For some news on Josh, we still must wait… and PRAY! Our prayer is that the MDS is not progressing quickly and we may be able to wait for the ‘perfect’ match donor; and/or that the ‘perfect’ match donor will be found quickly.  A perfect match does not mean an identical match, but it means that the match is ideal for Josh’s transplant to achieve our goal of destroying his old bone marrow and being replaced with the new one from the donor.

Many of you sweet friends and family have asked if you could sign up to be a donor. While you can’t directly be tested to be a donor for Josh, you may be added to the national registry at http://www.BetheMatch.com. There are some age requirements, but other than that it’s pretty simple, and it could save someone’s life! They merely have you mail a cotton swab sample of saliva from your check, and then contact you if and when a person like Josh is in need.  They also pay for everything including some compensation for time off work if you end up donating your stem cells. Who knows, it could even be for Josh himself!

We will keep you all posted on Josh’s bone marrow biopsy results as well as donor search results!

Love,

The Seibert’s