April 5

Hello everyone. Mark and I arrived home yesterday evening from Pittsburgh. It was a long day travelling. Our flight got delayed quite a bit because of the storms in Atlanta, so we sat in the airport half the day. We were just glad to get back safely and it felt good to be home again.

We are still quite excited about the great news Dr. Bartlett gave us. He didn't even bat an eye about whether or not he would try the surgery. We will now pray hard that the tumor and lymph nodes around the liver and encasing the bile duct will be easy for him to resect and not be attatched to any major arteries or other vital structures. That will now be our limiting factor and will determine whether or not Dr. Bartlett can do all that he is capable of doing with Mark's case. The surgery, if he is able to do everything, will probably take 8 or more hours. He feels confident that there will not be need for a colostomy, but only a small chance that he will have a temporary one. At this juncture, we really don't care about those things. Just get him better!!!!! We will still have chemo after surgery for at least 6 months and then we'll reevaluate. We may be able to stop some things then and just stay on the Avastin if Mark is doing well-that is the drug that strangles the blood supply to the cancer so that it cannot grow or spread. It is not officially chemotherapy. I know I'm getting way ahead of myself. Just one day at a time.

On the way home from Pittsburgh was the first time (probably since diagnosis) that Mark and I actually talked about a long term future. It felt really nice.

We were supposed to have a baseball tournament today, but it's been raining ALL day and it's been nice to just have a lazy day around the house. We haven't done a lot of anything except a quick trip out for haircuts for all 3 kids.

Thanks for all the support. Keep praying for Mark's healing. I feel God has led us to Dr. Bartlett and although the surgery isn't without risk, I feel Mark will do just fine through it. We will try to get it scheduled either late May or early June. We'll let you know when we have the date. God bless you all!!!!