August 1

Hello again. We heard from Pittsburgh yesterday. Dr. Bartlett sees new metastatic disease around the bile duct beneath the liver again and some in the pelvis along with scattered spots in the abdomen. His feeling is to go in and try the surgery again. He is pretty aggressive and wants to to the heated chemo again as well. They have to decide whether to do the Mitomycin or to try Oxaliplatin as the heated chemo agent. Oxaliplatin is a more specific colon cancer chemo agent, but they haven't yet established a protocol for using it yet. They have used it some. They feel Mark was a "treatment failure" on Mitomycin since they used it last time and his disease returned.

They don't feel they will be able to do the ileostomy reversal surgery since there will be so much dissection in the abdomen and pelvis. They will probably leave that or consider a colostomy instead. We will see.

In the midst of getting all of this news, Colton was up screaming with belly pain all day and having vomiting and diarrhea. Not the run of the mill stuff. I thought he may have appendicitis as bad as his belly was hurting. I took him to the Pediatric Clinic and they admitted him to the hospital straight from the office. We spent the night over there last night and will be staying the day as well. They will decide tonight whether to let us go or keep us. He had blood in his stools and was severely dehydrated. He didn't start urinating until they gave him 2 liters of IV fluids. He can't eat yet and they think it may be salmonella or shigella. Not sure where he would have gotten it since no one else is sick and we've all pretty much eaten the same stuff all week. Who knows.

Oh yeah, Mark's surgery date is Sept 4th. We will leave around the 1st or 2nd to fly up there. Mark was a little disappointed that it was opening weekend of football. Our tickets may be for not. Oh well, there are worse things, huh....

Keep Mark in your prayers as always. God bless!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!