In honor of #GivingTuesday, I wanted to highlight a few worthy causes that have helped Rachel during her treatments.

1. Donate blood or platelets. This is so important for cancer patients; I had no idea how much chemo affects a person’s blood counts. I lost count of how many blood and platelet transfusions Rachel had along the way. Visit http://www.redcrossblood.org/ to make an appointment or find a blood drive near you.
2. Make-A-Wish: Every 38 minutes Make-A-Wish® grants the wish of a child diagnosed with a life-threatening medical condition in the United States and its territories and every five days, it is the wish of a Maine child. Rachel is currently awaiting the final approval for a trip to Scotland for her wish. Visit http://maine.wish.org/ for the Maine chapter or http://wish.org/ for those of you outside the state of Maine.
3. Maine Children’s Cancer Program: This is the home of Rachel’s wonderful team of doctors, nurses, and social workers here in the Portland area. https://fundraising.mmc.org/mccp_home
4. Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital at Maine Medical Center: The nurses and child life specialists really know how to make an awful hospital stay bearable. Rachel hasn’t had to have a hospital stay here since her last chemo treatment in early August and we all miss the staff there. https://mainehealth.org/barbara-bush-childrens-hospital/fundraising-donations/ways-to-give
5. Grahamtastic: Providing free laptops, tablets, robots and internet access to seriously ill children, allowing them to continue their education uninterrupted despite their medical condition or financial limitation. Rachel received a laptop from this great organization, allowing her to more easily complete her schoolwork as well as stay connected to friends and be distracted by video games during her hospital stays. Leslie Morissette founded Grahamtastic Connection in honor of her son Graham who sadly lost his battle to cancer in 1997 at age 8. While spending many hours with Graham at the hospital, Leslie became keenly aware of a great need for children and families to access the internet. It was this need that inspired her to create Grahamtastic Connection. In 1998 Grahamtastic supported 10 children in Maine. The program has grown to provide computers to more than 150 recipients a year. http://www.grahamtastic.org/home.html
6. Next Step: Providing retreats, workshops, campferences, and other year-long programs for young adults ages 16-24 with cancer, HIV/AIDS, and other serious illnesses in the Boston area. Rachel had a great time attending one of their campferences for cancer patients this past summer and visited their office in Cambridge when we were there in October for her final radiation treatments. There are so few resources for this age group; Next Step serves a great need. http://www.nextstepnet.org/
7. Christopher’s Haven: Providing temporary, low-cost, apartment-style housing for pediatric cancer patients and their families while receiving treatments away from their homes at Boston hospitals. Conveniently located right across the street from Mass General, Christopher’s Haven was our home away from home during Rachel’s first radiation treatments and following her surgery in September. http://christophershaven.org/
8. Family Reach: Dedicated to alleviating the financial burden of cancer. Working with more than 200 hospitals and cancer centers nationwide, Family Reach provides immediate financial assistance, education and navigation to families before they hit critical breaking points. Family Reach made it possible for us to stay at Christopher’s Haven during Rachel’s treatments. http://familyreach.org/
9. Ronald McDonald House at Boston Harbor: Providing free apartment-style temporary housing for pediatric patients and their families during their treatments at Boston-area hospitals. Located in the beautiful Charlestown Navy Yard and close to one of the hospital (free) shuttle stops. We stayed here during the last of Rachel’s radiation treatments. https://www.rmhbostonharbor.org/
10. Love Your Melon: We learned about this organization during one of Rachel’s stays at Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital, when she received one of their hats. Love Your Melon is an apparel brand dedicated to giving a hat to every child battling cancer in America as well as supporting nonprofit organizations who lead the fight against pediatric cancer. https://www.loveyourmelon.com/
11. Massachusetts General Hospital: Rachel had an amazing team at MGH – the pediatric oncologist, nurses, music and art therapists, radiation oncologists, the orthopedic oncologist who performed her surgery, the plastic surgeon needed to make sure her spine would be covered properly: she was definitely in the very best hands. http://www.massgeneral.org/about/giving.aspx

Wow – writing this all down really makes me realize just how much help we’ve received in the past year. We are so thankful to everyone who has supported us along the way – the aforementioned organizations as well as everyone who has sent us cards and gifts and helped to make this past year just a little bit less awful. ❤

And now for the update: Rachel met with her local oncologist a week and a half ago. She got another IV antibiotic treatment (to prevent a certain type of pneumonia) while she was there and we learned that it will be the last one of those that she will need (they were once a month.) Yay! They also checked her blood counts to see where those are at now. Her white counts are pretty much in the normal range now, red blood cells are almost normal, platelets are still a little on the low side (nothing to worry about, just not back up to normal non-chemo range.) Her doctor is going to schedule her for post-treatment ekg/echocardiogram, chest CT scan, and MRI (or maybe just CT – not quite sure.) AND…Rachel is scheduled to have the surgery to remove her IV port removed this coming Wednesday, November 29 – the official final step for the end of treatment. ❤