June 6-Evening update

Hello. Mark is still doing well. He was not able to urinate after the catheter was pulled again today and had to have an in and out catheter tonight. They have continued the Flomax and the antibiotics for the urinary tract infection. Hopefully tomorrow things will be better.

Andy made it in from Auburn this evening to visit Mark and will be staying with us a few days in the Family House. Mark was excited to see Andy and enjoyed the visit. They will have more time tomorrow to catch up.

Mark continues to have episodes of confusion usually after he wakes from a nap. I think it is a combination of the narcotics, chronic sleep deprivation, and his prolonged hospitalization. He gets disoriented and I think he actually starts hallucinating some. We got a wheelchair this evening and took him outside some to help him out. He was pretty oriented tonight and lucid.

They are still letting him have only a few sips of clear liquids by mouth. He can slowly increase the amounts now, but he is taking it slow as to not get nauseated. He is doing well with it.

Mark's hemoglobin (the repeat one) came back at 7.9 this morning. They had to replace his potassium with 4 cocktails. His white blood cell count returned to normal and he hasn't run a fever today. They were able to stop the Vancomycin when the blood cultures didn't start growing anything and the urine culture came back. They also discontinued Cipro and only have him on 1 antibiotic now.

Overall, we are making progress. The attending physician felt Mark would be here another 3 or 4 days. That will be provided Mark can urinate on his own soon. We will have to stay here in Pittsburgh another 3 days or so before we fly home.

Eugenie was able to arrange an Angel flight for our trip home which will be a private place flown by a volunteer and they should fly us directly into the Auburn airport. That will be nice not having to go through security and have the long waits in the airport with Mark's current health situation.

Matt will be flying home tomorrow to Oklahoma. He is spending his last night in the hospital with Mark.

Thanks to all for the support and love. God bless!!