Bird Update - April 9

Brothers and assorted others:

Bando here. I was graced with a call from Big Bird today. It was a treat to hear him and his unique way of explaining everything. I only hope my retelling can do it justice. I'll be sitting down with Bird on Saturday to teach him this blog posting thing so that he can update us more readily in the coming weeks, months and years. In the meantime, I'll try to be as colorful and as accurate as Bird would be. If I'm not, don't shoot the messenger.

As for his grovel, the activity is starting to pick up significantly. He is now in touch with the specialists at the U-M Cancer Center. Yesterday afternoon, after reviewing a ton of data from specialists at U-M and Mayo, the tumor board meeting met to review Bird's case. Originally, they weren't going to have the results of his new CAT scan, which was originally scheduled to take place late yesterday AFTER the meeting. Instead, with some persistence, Bird was able to squeeze his way in to the scanner yesterday afternoon just ahead of the meeting. As a result, the tumor board was able to review the scans, too. This is important because with those pictures available, they didn't put him off another week.

The board determined that the tumor in the lung can wait for now, but the tumors in his small intestine have to be taken care of immediately. Big Bird continues to lose lots of blood because of these intestinal lesions. After the fishing trip last weekend, he had to have two more units of blood squeezed in. The doctors decided that he is losing blood too fast to allow them to work on the lungs. So, the effort will be to stabilize his sorry @ss first; "Let's keep Mark on the planet long enough to determine his needs on the lung part." The blood bank would like him to stop making so many withdrawals, too. :)

So, Mark will be admitted to UM's Cancer Center on Monday, 4/13. His surgery is scheduled for Tuesday, 4/13. He should be there for recovery and tests through at least Friday, 4/17, but may stay through the weekend. Information on visiting patients at the hospital can be found here. As we learn more about where he will be and whether he can have visitors or not, I'll post them here and in Facebook. Needless to say, if he can have visitors (and we assume that he will be able to), then everyone in the southeast Michigan should make an effort to stop in and give the Bird some in-person mojo and love.

They still don't know for sure just what it is, melanoma or another sarcoma. And, this surgery will only be going after the intestines. The lung will just have to wait. Hopefully, with additional review and results from the surgery, they'll have a better understanding. Then, additional attacks can be planned and executed to kill the marauding invaders. In the meantime, stabilization and stemming the blood-letting are the key priorities.

So, start looking at your calendars for next week right now. See when you can make it Wed, Thurs, or Friday. If he's still there over the weekend, we'll get the word out for additional love.