Marc the Plumber

As you can easily see, Marc has some pretty severe swelling in his left foot and lower leg and a little less in the right foot and lower leg. I had to cut the elastic out of several pair of socks just so he could get them on his feet. The swelling hasn't improved any this last week and I am now concerned that he is getting a cellulitis (skin infection). I will have the Dr. look at them tomorrow, in the meantime we are keeping an antibiotic ointment on it. I have tried to keep him down with his feet up but that is almost impossible. Marc has never been one to sit around when there is something that he thinks needs done; he has also never been one to ask for help! This week he has been "Marc the Plumber". He replaced the faucets in the guest bathroom in the house and in his office bathroom. He took out the old water heater for his office, by himself. His friend Ricky was here this morning and offered to help and they tried to get it out then but couldn't. Later I went outside with Annie to ride her bicycle and low and behold, the water heater was sitting out by the curb for the garbage pickup. How he got it down and out is beyond me. He then put in a bypass so that he would still have water in the faucets in the office. I have no idea what he has planned for this week but I hope I can convince him to take it easy. Fat chance!

Marc is now more than half way through his radiation treatments and should be finished with them on February 9th. this week he has lost his hair on the left side of his head where the radiation is aimed. The Dr. has been weaning him off the steriods the last 2 weeks and he went to only 2 tablets a day on Friday. Since cutting the dose on Friday he has started having more trouble with his speech again. He doesn't want to increase the steroids again but if the speech doesn't improve or if any other signs of increased inflammation occur he will probably have to increase the dose. I will also talk to the Dr. about that tomorrow. It just seems that every time he is on an upward swing something happens to go back down again. One of these days everything is just going to go right for a change. I pray for it every day.

Marc is scheduled at MD Anderson for an MRI on March 2nd and to see the neuro-oncologist on March 3rd.

More next week. . .