One night in the hospital and already feeling better!

I talked to Mark this morning and he sounded like a different person. I couldn't believe how much better he sounded! I haven't heard him with that much energy in a few weeks now. Granted, it was because of the drugs they are giving him but it was just great to hear him with energy. He said he now understands why athletes like steroids so much because he feels great on them! I asked him if that meant he was going to start lifting weights now and he said yes, starting tomorrow. :)

Now that they have him medicated and feeling better, his appetite is back which is good, except he's not allowed to eat anything until after they run all of his tests this afternoon. He said that is a little frustrating to finally want to eat something for the first time in weeks and not be able to.

When he was admitted to the hospital last night, he was greeted by two nurses who helped him during his IL2 clinical trial 5 years ago. It was the first time he had seen them since and they recognized him right away. They couldn't believe he was still alive after all that he has been through and the entire experience of seeing them again was very touching to Mark. He said it really made him sit back and think about how much he has overcome in the last (nearly) six years and how much he has accomplished. I think he is finally starting to realize what an inspiration he is to others.

The Melanoma survivors are few and far between at the James so Mark is pretty well-known there. One of the nurses told him he is even on a poster in the hospital somewhere! They were trying to find it and bring it to Mark so he could see himself on the poster. I hope they can get a picture of it if they do see it so I can share it with all of you!

Mark told me he's been doing a lot of soul searching over the last few days and he's come to a few important decisions. He does not think it would be a wise choice to follow through with the fourth infusion on Monday. He knows that his body doesn't have anything left to give at this point and it's in his best interest to just focus on gaining his weight and strength back. I was so relieved to hear him say this. In all of the six years he's been battling this awful disease, he's been so determined to complete the treatments by any means necessary to stay alive, but I think he realizes that the best thing he can do to stay alive this time, is give his body time to recover before giving it another infusion that will make him so sick.

He also agrees that rather than push so hard to get out of the hospital (which he doesn't regret doing for Christmas and would do it all over again, he said) he knows he needs to stay there as long as the doctors think it's necessary. He knows that he can't afford to go home and not be able to eat or drink and lose more weight as he has no weight left to lose. I felt like I was talking to a different person when he was telling me all of this. It made me so relieved to hear! He is really listening to his body and knows what he needs to do to take care of himself.

I will let you know the results of the tests this afternoon as soon as I hear anything. In the meantime, Mark strongly urged me to still travel to Pittsburgh to spend time with family and have fun for him since he wanted so badly to be there and can't. I'm sure he would urge you to do the same thing. Enjoy the last night of 2010 and celebrate all that 2011 has to bring! He said confidently this will not be his last New Year's Eve. If he didn't believe there would be other New Year's for him after this one, he wouldn't be fighting so hard to stay alive. He truly believes it and I do too!

Mark is back in the hospital

A home health nurse came to Kathy's house today to give Mark an IV. After receiving the IV, it was expected that Mark would feel a lot better. Unfortunately, he still continued to get worse and requested that he be taken to the James Cancer Center in Columbus. If you know Mark or have learned anything about him from this blog, you know that for him to actually request being taken to the hospital, it must be serious.

He is still having difficulty eating, the pain in his abdomen has returned and he continues to lose weight and strength. When they weighed him tonight upon his arrival at the hospital, he had lost more than thirty pounds in the last few weeks. He has at the lowest weight right now that he has ever been during his battle.

The doctors requested that he not eat or drink anything after midnight tonight so that they can run some tests on him in the morning. He will not be traveling to Pittsburgh to spend New Year's with the Fort family, which he and my mom both really, really wanted to be able to do.

Hopefully we will have more information after they run the tests tomorrow about why he is continuing to go down hill. As always, thanks for the prayers.

Prayers needed!

I talked to my mom tonight and Mark is in need of some prayers. He has continued to lose weight and has probably lost between 25-30 pounds in the last three weeks. Although he has been able to eat and drink small amounts, he is is very weak. A home health nurse is coming tomorrow to give him an IV to hopefully help give him more strength. As his brother Greg, who flew in from California to surprise him, said; Mark's spirit is like titanium but his body is in need of a huge pick-me-up.

I talked to him tonight and of course, he was optimistic. He said today is the best he has felt yet and that although much slower than he had hoped, he is moving in the right direction. As of last night, every time he tries to talk, he gets the hick ups, which sound quite painful. Our conversation came to a quick end tonight when the hick ups kicked in.

He is staying at his sister Kathy's house and she, Greg and my mom are all taking care of him. It's been a lot of stress on my mom who is working 11.5 hour days, trying to make up the time she missed last week while he was in the hospital, going to Butler after work to take care of the dogs and things around the house and then driving to Shelby to be with Mark. But he's very comfortable there and is being very well taken care of during the day while my mom is at work (thanks, Kathy!).

Mark is scheduled to go to Columbus on Friday morning to get his blood work done, as he always does the Friday before an infusion. He plans to travel to Pittsburgh on Friday to celebrate Christmas with the Fort family and he is still planning to have his fourth Ippy infusion on Monday. In my mind, I don't see how any of this is possible based on how he sounds on the phone and the report I got from my mom tonight, but Mark never ceases to amaze me. And when you tell him he can't do something, he will almost always prove you wrong.

Please pray for Mark to regain his strength and weight. Please pray that his fourth infusion on Monday doesn't cause even more severe side effects than the last and that his body can handle it. Please pray that all of this pain and suffering caused from the Ippy clinical trial is worth it and that it is actually working to fight his cancer. Please pray for my mom to continue being strong and doing all that she can to be there for Mark and continue working hard so they can pay their bills.

I know, those are a lot of requests but I have to be honest, I'm very concerned. He would be mad to hear me even sounding the slightest bit pessimistic, and I'm not trying to be. I'm just very worried about the effects of this last infusion, how slowly he is recovering and what the fourth infusion may do to his already weak body on Monday. We have gotten used to seeing Mark bounce back so quickly from his treatments, but this one was just too much for his body to handle. I do remember hearing that the third infusion is when your body should really start reacting to the drug and that the more severe the side effects, the more likely it is that the treatment is working. I'm hanging on to those facts right now.

Thanks for all of your support. We were so happy to have Mark home for Christmas and it truly meant the world to him to not spend Christmas in the hospital. Thanks for all of your prayers and please keep them coming!

The blood clot issue returns...

With no mention of the blood clot issue for the entire first 24 hours Mark was at the James, we all assumed it was a non-issue. Yesterday, the doctors read the report from Med Central and were very concerned about getting more information on the blood clot in the lungs. They weren't able to get the images from Mark's CT scan from MedCentral (which I still don't understand why not) so they wheeled Mark to the chest hospital (next hospital over from the James) yesterday to have another CT of the chest done. Once they got him there, they decided they didn't want to make him go through the trouble of drinking the liquid for the CT scan prep, because of all the stomach/digestive issues he's been having from ippy, so they wheeled him back to his room and scheduled an MRI of the chest for this morning (should be happening right now). I will let you know when I learn the results of the MRI.

When I spoke to Mark yesterday morning, he didn't sound good. At first I thought it was because he was highly medicated, but he informed me that he hadn't taken any medication all day except for the steroids. He told me he was just very, very weak, which makes perfect sense since he has lost 16 pounds in a week (probably more at this point) and hadn't eaten or drank anything since Sunday. He had to get off the phone suddenly because his stomach was upset again.

When I talked to him later that evening, he sounded much better. His spirits were good and he was anxiously awaiting my Mom's arrival after work - with a bag of goodies for him: his laptop and cell phone. The James has wifi in their rooms so I'm glad that after the testing today, he will be able to peruse the Internet (which he can do for hours) to help the day go by faster since he'll be all alone again.

While my Mom was there, she felt very good watching him eat and drink and thought he was moving in a positive direction. Unfortunately, right before she left he got sick and it all came back up.  She's worried about the fact that he still can't hold anything down.

On a positive note, a group of Cub Scouts put together Christmas packages for the patients at the James Cancer Center and Mark received one yesterday. It really made his day! He was telling me about all the items that came in it and how touched he was by their kindness. So thankful for those Cub Scouts!

Getting transfered to OSU

Mark finally saw a doctor this evening who had really studied Mark’s chart and was very knowledgeable about Mark’s history. They both thought he was very sharp and the doctor was able to convince Mark that he needs to stay in the hospital, which is no easy feat.

The paperwork is being filed right now and Mark is being transferred to OSU so that he can get on a stronger dose of steroids. He is being given a medication that is five times stronger than Morphine but it’s still not taking care of his pain. The doctor explained that Mark will need to be at the OSU hospital for at least two days. They are hopeful that he will be home by Christmas but of course there are no guarantees.

In addition to getting his pain under control, they really need to get his stomach issues taken care of or he runs the risk of a perforated bowel, which is the worst side effect from ippy and the one that has caused many people to die in this clinical trial. The doctor assures Mark that he doesn’t need to worry about dying from the perforated bowel, as long as he’s being monitored in the hospital.

My mom is most concerned about his weight. He’s lost fifteen pounds since last Monday from all the stomach issues from the infusion.  Now more than ever he needs his strength but a lot of his strength was in that fifteen pounds.

When I got off the phone with my Mom they were talking to another doctor. I will keep you updated with any new information as I become aware of it. There has been no mention of the blood clot in the lungs since last night so I’m assuming (and hoping) there isn’t one.

Thanks for all the prayers today and everyday!

The dark side of Ippy

Mark had another gamma knife surgery a few weeks ago and his third ippy infusion last Monday. He had the worst side effects to date from the latest infusion and lost twelve pounds last week alone. My mom said he looks very thin and very sick.

Yesterday he was complaining of severe abdominal pain. Early yesterday evening, he told my mom his pain was a 10 and that she would need to take him to the emergency room in Mansfield. So she did. The doctors told them soon after that the would need to be admitted. They spent the entire night in the emergency room before he was admitted to Med Central this morning.

They ran a CT of his chest and Mark was very disheartened when he saw that his lung tumors didn't appear to have decreased in size, meaning the ippy clinical trial hasn't worked...yet. My mom tried to remind him that sometimes it doesn't start working until after the third infusion and not to get too down about it. But when you're in such severe pain from the treatment, it must be very devastating to think it might not be working.

The doctors also think he might have a blood clot in his lungs and they want to get him on a blood thinner. My mom and Mark really want to consult with the doctors in Columbus before doing this to make sure it won't make him ineligible for the clinical trial.

Please keep both Mark and my mom in your prayers and I will keep you informed if and when I learn more.

Two infusions down, Gamma Knife to go

When people start asking me, "How is Mark doing," that is when I know that it's been too long since I've written an update. My apologies!

Last Monday, Mark had his second "Ippy" infusion. I think it's safe to say his side effects were much worse than with the first infusion. I saw him four days later on Thanksgiving and it was very obvious he was just not feeling like his usual self. He did help with all of the Thanksgiving preparation and turkey carving, but by the end of dinner, he had no energy left. He was still in good spirits and answered trivia questions to a game we were playing while laying on the couch with his eyes closed (and got most of the questions right, by the way - he is one smart cookie). He gave a very nice, heartfelt and thankful prayer before dinner. That being said, it was still sad to see him with such little energy and feeling pretty bad. He gets his next infusion in two weeks on Monday, December 13.

Tomorrow, he goes in for another Gamma Knife procedure on his brain. I am very thankful he is having the treatment, because when I talked to him a few weeks ago, he wasn't sure whether or not he would. He was hoping that the infusions were working on his brain and that he wouldn't need the Gamma Knife. When I asked him if he thought he should just do the Gamma Knife either way to increase the chances of getting rid of all of his brain tumors, he reminded me how unpleasant the procedure is to have bolts drilled into your head. It's much easier for me and others to advise when it's not our brain and pain. Nonetheless, he is going through with the procedure tomorrow.

Mark will be getting more scans done in January and that will be the first look at his lungs and brain since he started the infusion and will help to determine whether or not they are working. I pray every night that they are.

I know I say it all the time and I'll keep saying it; Mark's persistence and desire to fight this disease and stay on this Earth as long as possible never ceases to amaze me. Sometimes I'm not sure how he has enough energy to battle the insurance companies, call the doctors constantly to get his procedures and appointments scheduled, recover from his infusions and procedures all while working full time. I try to remember this and think of him each and every time I feel like I'm "tired" or "stressed."

My mom's health hasn't been great lately either. She was recently diagnosed with Hyperthyroidism and has been undergoing a lot of tests to get that situation figured out and properly medicated. Between the two of them, they are definitely doing their part to help out the medical industry during this recession!

Thanks for your thoughts and prayers!