Mark Allred

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In January of 2020, Mark got extremely sick overnight.  We went to the doctor, who sent us to the ER.  He was admitted and given a diagnosis of strep and the flu.  (We truly now believe that he may have had Covid at this time....regardless, we are thankful for whatever sickness he had that got us to the hospital and got us the diagnosis so the cancer could be treated.)  He also had very low platelets, so was given blood a couple of times.  After being released, he was admitted back into the hospital the next day when he fainted.  It was during this stay that they found out he had colon cancer, stage 3.  We expected to hear that he had an ulcer, and the news came as a complete surprise.  They did surgery within a couple of weeks, followed by chemo for about 7 months.  He was declared cancer free in October of 2020.  In February of 2021, he started having some concerning symptoms, so the testing began again.  They let us know that the colon cancer was back and that it had gone to the liver now.  There was another spot that the doctors were a little concerned about, so during the liver surgery, they would be looking at it.  There were two surgeries that could be done, so even though the doctor recommended one over the other, we decided to go get a second opinion at MD Anderson in Houston.  We expected them to just repeat the suggestion for surgery that we had already been given.  Boy, were we wrong.  The first day of doctor visits, we were told that the cancer in the liver had always been there and that it has just been so small that it was missed (meaning that he was stage 4 from the beginning).  We were also told that there were spots in his lungs and on his peritoneum wall that were cancerous also, along with another spot in another place.  This was overwhelming news, but it got even worse the next day.  The next day we met with the peritoneum cancer specialist who was pretty pessimistic.  He said that there was lots of cancer there and that chemo doesn't usually take care of it.  Because of Mark's heart condition and ejection fraction, they were adamant about no surgery - it was too risky.  The said there was also no point in surgery because the cancer was in several different spots.  The only logical thing to do was to start chemo and hope that the spots get smaller, and we hope DISAPPEAR.  They told us that his cancer is not curable, but they would treat it as much as they could.  When Mark started asking how long he might have, they wouldn't give any thoughts, but when pushed, we didn't like their thoughts and wished he hadn't asked.  He starts a new regimen of chemotherapy this week (as long as everything gets approved) on Wednesday and he will do eight rounds, every other week.  At that point, we will go back to Houston for new scans and to see how all the tumors are responded.  We are asking everyone to PRAY for a MIRACLE that doctors can't even explain away.  We ask God to heal him completely and that the scans  will be so clean that they can't comprehend other than to give it all to God.  Please pray with us.  We know that God is the great physician and holds us in HIS hands.