Thursday, March 25, 2010

Prayer, Laughter, Options and Research

Dear Friends and Family,

Thank you so much for all the words of encouragement and the prayers!!! We feel lifted up in prayer and that means so much to us.

We had a good visit with Dr. Elwood this morning. He talked to us about a couple of different options for Mark. One would be to do a round of chemo and then the surgery and then more chemo. Mark's CEA levels are up so they feel there are probably cancer seeds hiding in the liver that are undetectable right now. This process would allow the chemo to attack those cancer seeds and also possibly shrink the existing tumors.

The other option we spoke about is a process that first of all burns the tumors out of the liver and then chemo is injected directly into the liver only treating the liver and not the whole body. This is being done by a doctor at Emory (Dr. Hannah I believe) and so we are getting a consultation with him. This is a fairly new treatment.

We are also trying to get an appointment with a doctor in Columbus, GA that formerly worked at MD Anderson and are looking into either going out to MD Anderson, The Mayo Clinic, Sloane Kettering or Vanderbilt.

The bottom line that I feel we learned today is that we probably have about 2-3 weeks of research, consultations, trips to get 2nd opinions from the top experts and much, much prayer! After all of that our hope is to have a solid plan of action and to attack it with prayer, positive attitudes and lots of laughter!

Laughter you ask? Mark loves to laugh and has been reading lately how much that helps your overall health and attitude is everything!! There is one man that laughed when the doctor told him his bleak diagnosis and everyone thought he was crazy - 20 years later (about 15 longer than they gave him) he's still laughing (whose crazy now?). So, remember not only to love us, pray with us but please laugh with us -

We know God has a plan and we are positive about that! He has been so good to us and we are so grateful to where He has brought us thus far and are excited to see where He will take us.

Thanks again for all the love and prayers - you can't believe how much it helps!

Love,

Mark and Lee

Philippians 4:4-7

Rejoice in the Lord always, Again I will say, rejoice!
Let your gentleness be known to all men, the Lord is at hand.
Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made know to god:
and the peace of God,which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

2 comments:

  1. It's great to have options! We will continue to pray for wisdom and we'll work on the laughter thing. I know you're right about how good laughter is so maybe we'll all be healthier:).

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  2. Aunt Lee & Uncle Mark,
    This new process of injecting the chemo directly into the liver is being done at Duke. I have a lady in my Zumba class - her husband has prostate cancer and is undergoing this new process and its working! I know you have a lot of 2nd opion doctors to talk to, but if you're interested in speaking to the one at Duke, i can get the info for you. Just let me know!

    You are in my prayers & I love you both!
    -Brandi

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