Friday

This past Tuesday Mel and Aileen (Erica's sister and cousin respectively) came from Winnipeg and have spent the week with her. Wednesday was Erica's birthday. We are thankful she could celebrate with Marty, her children and also Mel and Aileen.  In the evening some friends from Guelph organized a party for her.  It's great to witness this care and communion of saints surrounding Erica.

Marty sat in a reclining wheelchair on Wednesday for approximately 30 minutes. This gave him opportunity to get out of his room and see some of the hospital floor that he's on. -- A nice change of pace for him, for sure and something to break up the day.  Today, he was in the same wheelchair for over an hour and a half and he was sitting up quite straight, which was great.  Because he has been lying in a hospital bed for so long it is very hard for him to hold his head up and he sometimes talks about a sore neck.

Marty has been struggling with fevers again after this round of chemo.  After doing some blood cultures the doctors realized he had an infection in the blood that was drawn from the PICC line.  After intravenous access was established in the other arm the doctors took out the PICC line to give a chance for this infection to clear up.  It should be noted that they also drew blood from the other arm and no bacteria was grown in the blood drawn from that arm so the doctors are confident that the infection was only in the PICC line.  He is currently being treated with 3 different antibiotics.  Because of this infection in the PICC line the doctors did a echo-cardiogram to make sure there is no bacteria in the heart.  This echo-cardiogram was done on Wednesday and has come back negative.   

On Wednesday Marty also had an MRI. The last one he had was prior to his chemo treatments. It makes no real sense to do an MRI after just one round of chemo, so the doctors have indicated that they will do it every two rounds. We were anticipating this MRI and today we could get the results -- favourable results. To quote the results of the MRI, "There is marked improvement with almost complete resolution of abnormal enhancement within [the areas of Marty's brain that have cancer]. ... There is a significant disease improvement." A way to interpret this is that the chemo is doing its job on the cancer in Marty's brain. We also see the LORD's hand at work here. This is good news and we are thankful for this news. We hope and pray that the LORD will continue to allow Marty's health to improve. 

First thing this morning Marty had a video x-ray to assess his swallowing ability.  We are very thankful that Marty passed this and will now be able to receive oral nourishment.  Some examples of the food he will be able to sample are yogurt, applesauce, cream of wheat, and cream of ______ soups. There are various guidelines to follow: Marty has to be completely awake when eating; he must use a teaspoon as an amount indicator; only one type of food per meal at first; if he shows any difficulty eating, he must stop; the intake of food must be very minimal for the first while and increase as time goes on; etc.

Today a neurologist saw Marty and was happy with his progress. He indicated that Marty has along way to go but, at this time, things are encouraging.

So, while today's blog indicates many positive things in regards to Marty's health, we are mindful of the fact that he remains a cancer patient and that he's far from the health he could enjoy earlier on this year. But when we consider how far he's come since his diagnosis, we can only give thanks to God for the healing that has taken place and continue to place Marty and his family in the LORD's care.

"The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him," -- Nahum 1:7

Mike and Amanda