Introduction

Late February of 2012 Mark was diagnosed with stage 4 Metastatic Melanoma Cancer. This is written for our family and friends who have so caringly expressed a desire to know of the current situation. We so appreciate the love and support that has been shown to us and we lovingly empathize with and pray for many of you that have had or are currently going through trials of your own. In love, hope and faith, Mark and Ane

Thursday, March 5, 2020

Moving Down on the Meds.

Mark feels better than he has felt in months!  It was remarkable how fast the cancer drugs reduced the pain by shrinking the tumor.  His energy level has also increased so he is back to working a full day without a nap.  It has been amazing!!

Unfortunately, his body started attacking his digestive track again.  Just after our last post Mark had to go back up to 30 mg of Prednisone a day. Dr. Taylor scheduled an infusion of infliximab for Monday, the 24th of February.  It seems to be working.  Mark is back down to 15 mg/day. Dr. Taylor also took him off of the Levoxyl as Mark seems to be producing thyroid hormones again.  The antibiotic he had to be on with the high doses of Prednisone was also stopped.  

Today we meet with the heart doctor with hopes of getting off the three heart medications.  That didn't happen, but he did lower the dose of Flecainide, so it's likely that in two months he will be off all three heart meds.

So...gradually he's tapering off some of the medications.  He had so many that he had to create a spreadsheet to keep track of them all! Of course, he will stay on the cancer meds. (Those are the spendy ones!)  

We would just like to mention that if you want to get every post, you can type in your email address under the FOLLOW BY EMAIL button on the right side of the screen.  Each post will show up in your email account. You can also UNFOLLOW if it's getting to be too much.  This is part of our medical history so we like to keep it updated, but we certainly don't want to be invading your Inbox with too many posts.