Good news!

So, do you want the good news about the boat or about Mark first? Okay, the boat it is. The service man just called to let us know how great our boat runs. It started right up and he took it on the lake for 15 min. Couldn't find a thing wrong! Hopefully, whatever it was worked
itself out and won't happen again. You don't know how happy Mark is. He's not sure where he is going to muster the energy, but he sure wants to get out on the lake again.

And, for the important news you really wanted to hear. As I said, Mark's scan showed progress of cancer treatment in some areas and slight growth in other areas. Dr. McCollum was pleased with Mark's scan and was able to clarify some of the findings for us. He says that he feels the chemo is being more effective than the pictures really indicate. While the scan shows spots to be larger, it also shows areas of tissue death within those spots, meaning that the cancer is dying. He says he is confident that the shrinking of the lung nodules and the changes in the liver nodules are an indication that we should continue with the plan using Folfiri to get a total of 12 treatments in. In addition, it is time to start intervening procedurally. There are four areas that they are wanting to eliminate. Of greatest concern are the areas in the liver, so they will address that initially. They are working to get in with a surgeon, Dr. Jeff Lamont. Dr. McCollum assures us he is one of the best he has worked with. He is very confident in his technical skills as well as his aggressiveness which make him a good fit for Mark's plan of care. He plans for him to remove the portion of the right side of the liver involving both lesions. It looks as though that will happen within the next month. In preparation for that, he must be off of one of his chemo drugs, Avastin, for 4-6 weeks. Yesterday was treatment he received treatment #6 without Avastin (Unfortunately, he told Mark leaving the Avastin out probably will not help to make him feel any better following chemo.)

The lung nodules appear 40-50% smaller on the scan and he is planning an ablation procedure to eliminate them. He thinks this will be done with ease and it will be scheduled following the liver resection.

While now we are are faced with the anticipation of another surgery, the news felt like a blessing to us. We, and especially Mark are very TIRED and have been praying that there is relief from all of this at some point. It feels kind of like having a bad job. You have to trudge through it, dragging yourself there everyday because it is what you have to do. Now there is a tangible plan to rid ourselves of this little inconvenience and look forward to life - without cancer! God is always good.

I am certain everyone has some questions, and I would be happy to answer anything. You can leave in the comments or e-mail to me at mmbrown@nts-online.net. I will probably do a little Q and A this evening with questions or things I have forgotten. Thanks you all for caring so much about us. We couldn't do it without you.

Also, a few special thanks this week to a couple of great people. Thanks Kristi and Danny for covering for my failures. Can you believe they actually arranged courier service to Dallas to get us something we forgot. True love, and we appreciate you and enjoyed getting to visit with you. And to our parents who we can always count on to make sure our kids are taken care of. It is such a relief to be able to leave and know that they are in good hands.

And before Landon left for school, as I mentioned changes earlier, he was reading and said "Hey, maybe you could mention what we did this morning," and so I must! Thank you to Austin and Landon who got up on there own and got themselves ready to go, on time, without force! For one of these two that is a HUGE accomplishment. Can anyone guess who? I know that princess Abby will follow the trend as well!!!???? God, please help them to remember how proud I was today!

Love to all, Missy