"Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; Save me and I shall be saved, For YOU are my praise." Jeremiah 17:14

Today has been another rough one for my sweet husband.  He says it feels like there is a knife in his back/shoulder!!  I can only imagine the pain he is in...it hurts me to the core because there is nothing I can do, except pray and help him....and I keep doing those things-constantly-but it still hurts me.  But my eyes are fixed on Jesus, because I know the healing He has for Marcus is just around the corner :)

We went to MD Anderson today to meet with Dr. Kim for follow-up after the ER visit Thursday night.  According to discharge papers, diagnosis was Progression of pulmonary metastasis and loculated effusion.  Basically, growth of tumors in right lung and trapped fluid in lung-in between tumor and lung tissue.  Solution?  Get back on treatment of some sort, get the tumors shrinking, then fluid will be absorbed and pain will cease...So, back to treatment options-first choice clinical trial GSK 2118436 (even though at clinicaltrials.gov it says it is recruiting, at the moment the trial is full, but hoping to open about 20 new spots) anyways, this has been the first choice trial all along, but Dr. Kim just didn't want Marcus to go too long without treatment, because of what is happening now-progression, pain, problems....but, he says, if Marcus feels up to it, he would like to see him wait at least another week to see if the company really does open those new spots-they told MD Anderson last week that they would in 2 weeks...so next week should be  it! They told us he is # 6 on MD Anderson's list for this trial once the spots are opened, so we just pray he will make the cut!!! There is also a combo trial of GSK 2118436 and GSK 1120212 (BRAF and MEK) that is not recruiting yet, but would also be another option if it opened up before the other spot does....and there is always the trial I posted about last time, a gamma secretase inhibitor trial-so, 3 trials so far that could hopefully open up for him....and then last back up plan is another combo of chemos-Carbo something and Plaxi something, I haven't researched those yet, but, Dr. Kim says he has a patient that has done that combo and is 2 years stable disease, so that chemo for sure sounds good to try if needed! In case you are wondering why we don't just do chemo until trials open-the catch with trials is you have to be off a chemo or other treatment for usually 4-6 weeks before you can start trial-so if Marcus were to do some chemo now, then the trial opened next week, he would be excluded-and may not get a chance to get back in-so, at this point, the waiting, is pretty much his best choice-so we wait-patiently-because God is in control.
SOOO, if you are still reading and I haven't lost you in all this, please keep praying for Marcus.  He has new pain meds to try and see if these work better so he can at least get some rest...he maybe slept 3 hrs last nite-just can't get comfortable-pain overcomes him, then shortness of breath-because he is basically only working with left lung...the right lung is so full of fluid and tumor, they told him only a small portion of it was actually doing anything-THANK GOD his left lung is still stable and working fine!!  The devil keeps trying to bring us down, making us all discouraged, but we just keep fighting!  I found several Healing scriptures and printed out some for the girl's bathroom and some for ours....I taped them to our mirrors so every time we looked in the mirror we would have those scriptures ready to pray!!  And believe me when I tell you, having the word of GOD in front of you, to see, to speak, to pray-truly makes you feel FULL of power, strength and mighty praise!!!  We would not be making it through each day if it weren't for the grace of God-So I give Him glory-ALWAYS AND FOREVER!!!!!