We wanted to give a quick mid-cycle update to let you know how Maggie is doing and how prayers – yours and ours – are being answered.

Maggie has been staying close to home (away from germs) for most of the time since her last infusion. She has had a difficult time with her belly recovering from chemo. Last Monday we were thinking we might be watching her slip into another bout of C-Diff. We prayed like crazy for mercy. She slowly began to recover on her own – no antibiotics. We submitted a fecal sample on Wednesday to be sure we were headed in the right direction. No C-Diff was detected. She has stayed hydrated and eaten a bland diet. This past Monday she was able to spend part of the day at Temple helping with DNow planning. She is at church tonight, and we are guardedly optimistic that she will take part in DNow activities this weekend. She has reported only one short break-through pain episode since increasing her patch dosage. We all continue to avoid the contracting the flu. I’m almost completely over a nagging cold, but that is the only thing to come our way (so far, still praying).

The prayer requests are more of the same – avoiding the flu and other seasonal bugs in our home, Maggie’s belly to continue healing to allow her a fun weekend doing what she loves, death to cancer cells, and strength to keep moving forward. We did hear that UAB does not a clinical trial suited to Maggie’s case. Our plan is find out her CEA on Monday and use it as guidance in timing our contacts with MDA. Maggie wants as much “normal” as possible, so we’re balancing our desire to identify the next step with her need to rest. If the change to Cetuximab proves effective, we’ll breath easier and allow Maggie some much needed breathing space. If the CEA suggests otherwise, we’ll move more quickly. Either way, we’ll be speaking to her team at MDA in the coming days.

Thank you for your continuing prayers and interest. We’ll provide another update before, but our next scheduled admission for standard chemo is Monday, Jan. 29th at Batson.