Great News!!!

Marc and I had wonderful news today; the PET scan he had yesterday revealed no evidence of tumor growth! That means that, so far, the chemotherapy and radiation therapy are working. Marc says "I still have a monster on my back but now the outlook seems better." What a wonderful feeling it was to hear the news.

Overall everything is going well. Marc continues to go to speech therapy twice a week and his speech seems to improve every day. He still has some trouble expressing what he wants to say but I can see improvement every day. He is keeping busy doing things around the house and catching up on chores that needed to be done. The other day he said that his to do list just keeps getting longer.

We had a nice visit over the weekend from Marc's sister, younger brother, next to oldest brother and his wife. It was good to see them but the visit went by much to fast. It was wonderful to hear Marc and his siblings reminisce about old times.

On Sunday we celebrated our son, Steve's birthday and had a good time visiting with the kids and playing with the grandchildren. We look forward to seeing the grandchildren every weekend, they are such a joy!

Enough for now, I'll post more next week.

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. . .

Getting more active . . .

Marc has started getting a lot more active around the house now. Our neighbor called me about 2 weeks ago and asked me if I knew that Marc was up on the roof. Well by the time I got out there he was down but only because the leaf blower wouldn't start. I was beside myself! He did get a chewing out from me and his response was that he had technical difficulties or he wouldn't have come down when he did. Since then, he has started remodeling his shed and has decided to re-side it as well as reorganize, add shelving and insulate it. He just can't sit still and has got to be doing something. We went to Home Depot the other day to get siding and after they loaded the siding in the truck he got in and drove home. The Dr. had told Marc because of the risk of having seizures, he was not to drive. I was a nervous wreck! He did fine but he knows he cannot be driving anymore, at least not until he is released by the Dr. to do so.

Marc's speech continues to improve daily. He can converse in short sentences now. That is wonderful! He is not having any further problems with the blood clots but is on daily injections of Arixtra (an anticoagulant). He does have severe swelling in his left leg, the leg that had the clots; it is at least twice the size of the right leg, which is also swollen but on a much lesser degree. The oncologist told us this morning that the swelling is common after someone has blood clots and that there isn't much that can be done to improve the swelling other than get some regular exercise, massage the leg and elevate it as much as he can.

The radiation therapy is going well and should be done about the 9th or 10th of February. We will go to MD Anderson 3 weeks after the treatment is complete for another MRI, to see the neuro-oncologist and get started in the clinical trial.

That's all for now, I'll post more next week.