May 31-ICU day

Mark looks great today. He is having quite a bit of pain. He looks great though!!! They maxed out his paravertebral block dose and gave him an extra bolus today when the pain team was making rounds. That seemed to help. They also increased his narcotic dose. He can push a button and get a dose every 8 minutes and trust me he is getting it every 8 minutes. He is constantly pushing the button. We started timing it for him and telling him when he had 30 seconds left. He is a little loopy from all the drugs and still has his sense of humor through all of this. He is joking with us and the nurses.

We were all very impressed with watching him get up and into a chair at noon today. He pretty much just popped out of bed. He does whatever he is told. He just wants to get better.

His swelling is much better today. We were warned that he might be worse today, but instead he looks better. His face is less swollen, but he still has a lot of edema in the body and hands since they aren't elevated like his head.

Dr. Bartlett came to see Mark this morning. He usually doesn't make rounds since he does so many of the day long surgeries and is chief of surgery here. We were excited that he stopped by to see Mark. Words cannot express how I feel about that man. He has been a God send to our family.

Thanks for all the messages and support. We wouldn't have made it this far without everyone's encouragement and support. God bless!!!!!

May 30-Final update of the day

Mark's surgery ended up being 10 hours by the time they closed him up. He spent the next several hours in the recovery room and then to ICU. We finally got to see him around 9pm tonight. He was awake although heavily sedated. He is doing great!!! They were able to get him off the ventilator and he is breathing on his own. The nurses told us his labs look better than 90% of the patient's that she sees with this procedure.

Mark is very swollen. They warned us he would be. He can hardly open his eyes with all of the edema. We jokingly told him he looks like Jabba the Hut. Matt keeps asking where the bee is that stung him. He still has his sense of humor.

We are all exhausted from a long day in the waiting room and are ready to crash for the night. We plan to get back to the hospital early in the morning to see Mark again.

Calen was thrilled with the news of his father and jumped for joy I'm told. He then hit a double and a single followed by a stolen base to second, third and then he stole home. He has called a few times to check on Mark and is just thrilled to hear about his dad.

I have been telling Mark about all of your messages on the blog since he can't read them yet. Once he is sitting up in a chair, we can take him the computer and he can read them for himself. Thanks so much to everyone for the support. We are just elated tonight. It is definitely an answered prayer for us. Praise God!!!!

May 30-Surgery is over!!!!!!!!!

Mark is finally out of his 9 1/2 hour surgery. We were thrilled to hear from Dr. Bartlett that they think they got EVERYTHING!!!!!! They got out the primary tumor and the external tumor around the rectum and prostate without difficulty. They did have to do a temporary colostomy, but it will be for only 6 weeks. They resected the lymph nodes and they were all benign. No cancer in the lymph nodes. YEAH!!! The spots on the liver were not disease. They had spots on the diaphragm, pancreas, spleen and peritoneal seeds that were all removed successfully. These were all superficial spread of the tumor and not disease in the organs themselves. They completely removed the omentum (lining outside the stomach/intestines). They did have to take out some of the small bowel as well and another section of the large bowel. They took out his gallbladder and appendix and then did the heated chemo bath.

Mark is being closed up now. They should move him to the recovery room soon and then to ICU. He will remain on the ventilator tonight and they will keep him asleep, so he won't get all of this exciting news until the morning. We will have a big party in the ICU for him tomorrow. He will definitely be excited.

We were thrilled with the news from Dr. Bartlett. Thanks to all of you prayer warriors out there. There is a lot of power in prayer and I think we've witnessed that today. God bless!!!

May 30-Surgery update

We just got another surgery update. Mark is 6 hours into the surgery. They are now starting the heated chemotherapy perfusion into the abdomen. They removed all the "seeds" or metastatic disease from the abdomen, but they didn't give us any specifics about the colon and what had to be done on the liver, prostate, rectum, etc. The chemo wash will take another 2 hours and hopefully he will be finished.

We should be getting the full update from the surgeon when they are finished. It sounds like God has been present in that OR today. Thanks so much for all the prayers today and every day since Mark's diagnosis. God bless!!!!

May 30-surgery

We are waiting on a second update. They called from the OR once about 3 hours ago and stated that they were a go and that Mark was stable, but didn't offer much else. They were going to call and update us every 3 hours (or at least try). Our 3 hours should be up in the next 10 minutes or so. We'll keep you posted as we know things.

We are saying a lot of prayers that God is working his magic in that room with the doctors and healing Mark's body of this cancer. God bless!!!!

May 30-Surgery has started

They started Mark's surgery an hour and 15 minutes ago (7:45am central). Since we haven't heard otherwise we are assuming all things are a go. They started with a scope to make sure they would procede with the entire surgery. Mark was doing great just before they took him back. They gave him good drugs and he was feeling good. He was calm and ready to go. They had already given him the paraspinal block as well. He was giving the nurses a hard time and had his sense of humor the entire time. They were laughing at him in the pre-op area.

Matt, Eugenie, my mom and I all got to go visit with him until they rolled him away.

We will keep you updated. God bless!!!!

May 30

Hi. It's surgery day. We are at the Family House. The hospital was completely full yesterday and Mark didn't get a room like planned. It actually kind of worked in our favor since he got to spend the entire day with all of us here instead of in a stuffy hospital room. Anyway, by 3pm I called the doctor's office and asked if we should be starting the bowel prep since we didn't have a room yet. They said this has never happened. We had to scramble to get to the pharmacy and pick up Rxs and bowel prep stuff. We got it all done and had an okay night. Not a lot of sleep. Mark is doing okay. He is nervous of course, but ready. It is 3:44 central time and we are headed across the street to get checked in. I will update as I can. Keep the prayers coming today. God bless!!!!