June 8

Hello everyone. Mark is doing a little better today. He had a very rough day yesterday. They stopped his PCA pump with IV pain medication that he could control by pushing a button when he needed it and put him on pain pills that required the nurses to bring them to him. That was a nightmare. The pain pills weren't strong enough and he had a terrible nurse from 6am to 6pm yesterday. She would only bring him 1 pain pill instead of 2 and then made him wait while he was in terrible pain to be cathed. Trust me, Mark told the doctors all about it this morning and they were sympathetic. They said if a grown man was begging to be cathed, that was some pretty SEVERE pain!!! Anyway, she has been the only bad nurse we've had the ENTIRE stay here. Everyone else has been just great!!! Thank goodness our evening nurse came on and got right on top of things. He started giving Mark pain meds a little earlier than scheduled at first and when that didn't work, he was right on the phone calling the doctors getting orders for the IV stuff. We were very thankful to have him here. Mark was more comfortable.

They are changing medications today to try and get better control of Mark's pain since he can't go home on IV pain meds. So far it's not working, he is still requiring some IV stuff. This may prolong his stay a bit. We were hoping for discharge from the hospital tomorrow and flying home from Pittsburgh on Saturday. We will see.

Mark will go home with an indwelling catheter and we will have to see a urologist when we get to town to see if we can get it out after a week or two. Not fun, but it beats the alternative.

Eugenie spent her last night here with Mark in the hospital. She leaves this afternoon at 2:30 for the airport.

We are really missing the kids back home and I think they are really missing us as well. We have been able to video conference with them a little bit and that has been helpful. I know Brent and Kathy are worn out from running them all over Auburn and the entire state with their baseball tournaments. I can't wait to give all of them a great big hug!!!!

Keep praying for Mark's healing and strength as he will have another surgery in the next 4-5 weeks followed by 6 months of chemotherapy. Also for all of you prayer warriors out there, pray for Nancy who is a young girl staying at the Family House and is waiting on a multi organ transplant. Their family has been there for several months now and they are a wonderful family. God bless you all!!!!