Happy Year of the Tiger

Happy Year of the Tiger! We wish you happiness and health in 2022!

The highlight since our last update is that we have connected with my amazing stem cell donor, Annabel, to tell her how grateful we are for her gift that saved my life. Annabel is from Germany and lives in Paris. The donor registries only permit contact between donors and recipients after the second anniversary of transplant.

We met Annabel over Zoom (how else these days?!) and look forward to meeting and thanking her in person. Thanks to Annabel’s stem cells, my blood counts remain stable and I am feeling better and better. The biggest challenge recently has been avoiding Omicron as my immune system continues to recover. UCSF has given me prophylactic injections of COVID antibodies (AstraZeneca’s Evusheld), because I did not maintain an adequate immune response after receiving my booster of Pfizer’s vaccine. We hope to see COVID as well as cancer in our rear view mirror very soon!

We loved having all three boys home for the holidays and gathering (after testing) with our extended families. We continue to enjoy hiking the trails in the Redwood forests around us and in the headlands overlooking the Pacific Ocean while the boys surf. 

Here are some recent pictures of our family as well as a picture of Annabel, in the purple dress, with her family and her boyfriend, Marco. Our song for this blog, in honor of Annabel, is Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen. Thank you again Annabel!