Prayer Request for Marcus and Jessica

Please pray for my nephew, Marcus, and his family. As you have read in my previous posts, he has brain cancer that came back with a vengeance. The new chemo treatment was not working and after a lot of thought, tears and prayer, he and his parents stopped all treatment. He knew he was not going to survive this time. Here is the message that was posted by my sister on Marcus's carepage yesterday:

"I always hate to post somber news, but I know there are a lot of people wondering how Marcus is doing. He really is deteriorating fast. We are pretty sure that he could "go" at anytime now. He is so week, unable to see or even speak much. His breathing is getting more and more erratic and his pulse is fast and unstable. He has been in more pain, so we are adjusting his meds to keep him more comfortable. He mostly sleeps, he doesn't eat and only has very few fluids since he can't swallow much. We are just praying that he goes quickly so he doesn't suffer.

Thanks to all those who are getting Marcus's name out there for good thoughts and prayers. Thanks for all the well wishes, comments and prayers you have left here and on my blog. It is so wonderful to see how many love and care for us and especially Marcus.

With much love...

Karen"

I'm sure that you all remember my most recent post: Prayers for Marcus where I told you about Melanie's prayer and RAK request. At the time that Melanie first contacted me about doing the request we didn't know that Marcus would get so bad so fast. Melanie was hoping for cards to be sent to him to cheer him up. It seems as though the cards should really be sent for the family now. Marcus seems to be aware when people are in his room but isn't able to carry on a conversation. Of course any cards, email and messages left for him will be read to him but it's possible that by the time any cards that are sent reach their destination, he will no longer be with us. Please don't let this discourage you from sending cards to the family though.

I've been looking over some of the wonderful comments left on Karen's blog and Marcus's carepage. I see that some of you have already left comments and my sister and I truly appreciate it. I would like to thank you for doing so and encourage you all to continue to support Karen and her family as you have done for me and mine. (I sure hope I'm making sense because it's after 4:00am and I haven't been to bed yet.)

It's been an emotional and exhausting day for me. Jessica had to have her wound care done today and it was quite painful since the previous nurse hadn't pushed the sponge down into the wound as far as she should have and the nurse today had to open that part up again. *tears* It's been a very difficult few weeks since Jess obtained her wound (which I still have nightmares about), had surgery, had to go to the surgeon's office every day for wet to dry wound care and finally getting the actiVAC installed and set up on home-care. The wound seems to be healing pretty well except for a couple of areas... a possible small hematoma or abscess that we are watching at the top of the wound and then the center of the wound seems quite wide. When we saw the surgeon on Monday he said something like, "she may not need a skin graft after all." He has NEVER said anything about a skin graft! Let's just hope and pray that he is right and that she won't need a skin graft and that the area at the top of the wound resolves it's self. Jessica is not showing any signs of an infection and is still on an antibiotic for a few more days... so hopefully this will stave off any bugs. It's been very interesting to have to deal with two tubes. The oxygen that she always wears and the tube from her leg to the actiVAC machine. If I haven't mentioned the machine before now and you are interested to know what it is, go to http://www.activac.com/ . I haven't had a chance but I plan on posting a lot more information here (with pictures) about Jessica's wound and how this machine is really helping. We are hoping that she will be able to be disconnected from it next week! Jess is not able to have regular baths (sponge baths only) and she finally we able to feel up to leaning over the tub to have her hair washed after not having it done for 1 1/2 weeks.

Karl and I went to dinner last night (Fri) and discussed a lot of things. I realize that it's very unlikely that we will be able to attend Marcus's funeral. Jessica's wound is still a major concern and she neeeeeeeds me. Of course Jessica isn't up to traveling so my mom had suggested that Karl go and take the boys. Karl and I discussed it at length and we feel that it would be best if we stay together as a family and have our own memorial for Marcus right here. I had been thinking about that a lot lately and have wanted to do what's best for my family. It just kills me to not be able to go and be with my family but my husband and children have to come first - and they need me here. When our friend Zoe passed away, we wrote little messages for her and sent them on balloons up into the sky. Jessica knew that Zoe wouldn't really grab the balloons but it symbolized us sending our love and personal messages to her. It seemed to really help Jessica to have closure. Brandon and Austin participated in that activity with us and it helped us all. We will do our own thing here and either write our messages or verbalize our feelings and memories of Marcus right here at home.

If you need the contact information for Karen again here it is: Karen's blog: "I Made it Through Another Day" and http://www.carepage.com/MarcusRussell .

Thank you all so much! These are difficult times for my family but with so much support from so many loving people and our faith in God, we will make it.

Here is a song that I'm sure exemplifies what Karen and John (Marcus's parents) are feeling right now.