Nov 16

Hello. We spent the morning and half the afternoon in the infusion center today. Mark had his blood drawn and we planned to use the CEA to help determine his treatment plan for today, but the lab machine was broken that runs the CEA lab. We met with Dr Farmer and discussed things. Dr Farmer went over the three plans of action with us. First, provided the CEA stabilized we can stay with the Vectibix and ride it out as long as we can. Second, we switch therapy and try the FOLFOX with Avastin as a last ditch effort. She isn't convinced it will work and thinks it's only a 5% chance at best of success. Third, we can stop treatment and put Mark on hospice. Usually there would be an option for clinical trials, but unfortunately there aren't any trials nationwide for Mark to get into right now. That just goes to show you that we need a lot more money put into cancer research. The drugs and cures aren't here and neither are the trials going on to find the cure. It's really a helpless feeling. Since the marker wasn't back yet and Mark was feeling pretty good and his weight was up 1 lb to 162, we opted to give him the Vectibix again today. He got infused without any complications. This one really doesn't make him sick at all or give him side effects except for the acne rash, so all being said it wasn't a bad trade off. His magnesium was low again, which required a 2 hour magnesium infusion and kept us there until around 3pm.

After returning home, we got an email from Dr. Farmer with Mark's CEA coming back at 588. It wasn't great news for sure,but was actually somewhat better than I had expected. We didn't publish Mark's last CEA which was 473 and that was 5 days after his last treatment of the Erbitux and Camptosar and just before his first Vectibix infusion. It really skyrocketed in those 5 days, so only going up 115 points in 2 weeks wasn't devastating. Dr. Farmer will do another CEA in 2 weeks when we return for treatment and depending on that number, we will either get another Vectibix or go back to the FOLFOX with Avastin. The FOLFOX likely will make Mark a little sick, but HOPEFULLY will lower the CEA and start treating the cancer again after a long time of letting it grow uncontrollably.

The boys and I had another talk about Mark's illness after mass Sunday. We got out of the car and took a little walk at Cary Woods school just to get some fresh air. It is really tough for them. Colton asked me before bed that night "why can't I just have a normal life?". It was really hard. My heart aches for them. He says he needs his dad here to teach him things and he is right. I just told him to pray and we will see what happens, but God has a plan for all of our lives and his plan may not always be what our plan is.

Please continue to lift Mark up in prayer as always. We are hopeful that something will work although the options don't look great right now. Remember the Parker family in your prayers as well as Marie Hoffman who is having surgery this week. God bless!!!!!