Oct 7

Well, tomorrow is the big day. Mark will once again start his chemotherapy. We are both excited about it and dreading it at the same time. He hasn't been feeling good today, so that makes getting chemo tomorrow sound even less appealing. Matt was here with him this afternoon and Mark was starting to hurt a lot. He wasn't due to change his pain patch until tomorrow afternoon, but they decided to change it a day early to see if they could get better control on Mark's pain and I think it has finally started helping. Dr. Farmer talked to us about doing this if we needed to, so we may have to change the patches more frequently. Mark's CEA marker was very high at 240. It was around 60 prior to surgery. We hope this chemo can get the marker to fall dramatically with treatment.

We are scheduled to be at the infusion center at 8:30 and the infusion should start shortly after that. They will give premedications first to decrease the chance of Mark having a reaction. They will give only a small dose of the Erbitux at first and infuse it slowly over 5 minutes. If there is a reaction, it usually happens within the first 5 minutes. If we get past that, they can speed up the infusion a little bit and watch him. He will have another drug to get as well, but it is one he's had before and we don't expect complications. It does cause severe nausea. Mark required multiple antinausea medicines and the electrical stimulator watch for nausea with this drug before, so hopefully we can manage (especially with his already poor nutrition status). We will have to do these treatments once a week for 4 weeks and then Mark will get 2 weeks off before we restart the cycle.

Mark wanted to watch the wedding video tonight. We used to watch it every year on our anniversary, but eventually got out of the habit and we haven't watched it in years. It was fun seeing it again. We look so young (like kids) and had so much fun. The kids in the wedding are now grown and in college.

Please continue to keep Mark in your prayers and say a special prayer for him tomorrow while he gets this new chemo agent. We hope and pray that all goes well. Remember Bennie Pierce who is fighting cancer and pray that Carly Parker remains cancer free. There is one more prayer request today for Joel Speigner who was recently diagnosed with GI cancer. He has started chemo and needs the chemo to shrink the tumor enough for the surgeons to be able to surgically resect it. Please remember Joel in your prayers as well. Thanks for all the love and support. God bless!!!!!