Though they did send Mark home on a heart monitor, it was a much happier heart attack that met us in our driveway. Some adorable children secretly left hearts covered in inspirational thoughts all over our garage, front door, porch, pots and even landscape rocks. If we weren’t already smiling as we came home, our smiles grew as we admired their kindness.

We do have good news and I will put it into chronological order.

I elaborated on the blessing of Hope Lodge. We continue to feel such gratitude that this worked out so well.

I want to say again that the surgery was a miracle. Instead of peeling the tumor from the femoral artery and losing a great deal of blood – the vessels were not involved and there was minimal blood loss. Instead of easing the tumor from the pelvic bone it simply wasn’t an issue. They told us 4-7 hours and later said it could easily have been 9. The tumor was out in 3 hours! Everyone involved marveled at all of this. I think the reason he was in surgery for so long was that chest tube.

We were so frustrated with the chest tube button have come to have such gratitude for that chest tube! You will recall that it was the cause of us staying so many extra days in the hospital. It just wasn’t working and it was hard to find someone to be willing to take it out. I think I left off with Mark finally going to surgery at 5:30 Sunday evening? The film was showing that the tube had gone down through the diaphragm and back up and the concern was herniation of bowel, spleen, stomach, etc. Their plan was to remove the chest tube but insert another one because they would have to work out air pressure issues. He would be in the hospital for at least 24 more hours. Here is what happened.

The surgery was very fast. They only had to make one incision to insert a camera. Again, everyone involved was so happy to find that, although the tube had gone through the diaphragm in two places as expected…. it had not penetrated the peritoneum at all! They were able to remove it and not insert another one. Worries of abdominal organs creeping into pleural space disappeared. And best of all when he returned from PACU he was on a normal diet and allowed to eat a full dinner. Alright – that was second best… true best was that we would be able to go home on Monday!

We came home truly counting our blessings. Thank you, thank you for your prayers!

Now for today’s news. We have been bracing ourselves for our meeting with Dr. Chalmers, our oncologist. We knew the plan – Mark has immunotherapy and iron infusions today. Next Wednesday we were planning to report for his first inpatient chemotherapy appointment and stay for another three days. He was being very brave because the thought of chemotherapy has always been daunting. Mark looks to Greg for an example of facing it bravely.

Instead we learned this: The fluid on the lungs had been compartmentalized. For a review – fluid isn’t actually in the lungs. The fluid collects between the lung and the chest wall in the pleural space. It causes the lung to collapse on itself and for Mark it had been doing this in a way that created pockets of fluid. On the films it looked like the existing tumors had just exploded with growth. I saw the pre-op X-ray and there was fluid gathered but definitely separate “growths” but now it turns out they were also pockets of fluid.

Here is why we now celebrate the problem-causing chest tube. It was such an issue with everyone and finally that pulmonary team agreed to just drain the lungs. Recall the two liters that came off as a result. Now they wanted a CT scan to see just where that chest tube actually was. It was that CT scan that finally gave our oncologist a good view of what is really happening.

She was very happy this morning to let us know that the new plan is to continue to give immunotherapy a fighting chance. He will do one or two more rounds and they will evaluate the effectiveness again in FIVE weeks! That takes us almost to Thanksgiving! In the meantime when breathing is labored we will report to the pulmonary team and they will drain the lungs as necessary.

We feel like we have a new lease on life. We know that if anything changes we can jump right back into Plan A which is now Plan B. For today – we are so humbly grateful to the Lord for our multitude of blessings! The support of family and friends is right there at the top of our list!

Mark worked a full day yesterday from the recliner. His drains are doing their job and we think they will be coming out earlier than anticipated. He is using a walker to get around but when I was gone yesterday he snuck downstairs on his own to fix the router.

Mark reminded me this morning that I love rollercoasters (I do!!). So here we are – riding this rollercoaster together and with all of you! What a thrill it is!