Most of you know that Marc Mandeville was diagnosed with Stage IV colorectal cancer in January after a colonoscopy revealed a mass in his lower intestinal tract. It’s been so inspirational reading his blog entries over the past few months. His posts will make you want to laugh and cry at the same time, and in each post he is more optimistic than the one before… and yet, folks - it pains me to clarify this, but stage IV cancer is no joke, and for the mass to be tucked in there and so big, it is hard to comprehend how very positive Marc has been, for the sake of his family, his wife, and children. Marc went through weeks of Chemo with the hope that the primary tumor would soften and “take up a little less space” to allow for surgery.
Finally, it happened and Marc has gone through surgery with very positive results, with only 20% of his liver needing to be removed, which was a big concern.
You have to visit his blog and sign his guestbook, but to share some of it here, you can see the incredible attitude he has — before the surgery Marc said:
“Only a couple of small changes….my gall bladder will probably have to come out (it’s in the way) and they will actually have to “wedge out” one of the other lesions that is near my portal vein. Turns out the portal vein acts as a “heat sink” for the liver, so the radiofrequency ablation would not be effective as the vein would absorb too much of the generated heat to correct the lesion that abuts the vein. Better than previously though, I will probably have better than half my liver leftover when all is said and done, much to the chagrin of my wine collection.”
prior to surgery at the hospital:
“They prepped me for my gown (thankfully an extra long) and gave me a shot of heparin into my belly. A quick tube of blood for typing (just in case) and I was then picked up by a guy named “Ski” (obviously an Irishman). Well, Ski was a funny guy. Upon my giving my spouse my wallet he told her to “Run…now”. I told him that was no way to treat a fellow Polack, to which Ski told Megan something to the effect of “Oh you’re Polish…run….faster”. A kiss for good luck and I was off to one of Christiana’s four or five surgery prep areas, which are actually 8 bed “bays”. As I learned shortly after, Christiana Hospital is actually 8th in the country in surgeries performed per day….not bad for a hospital that isn’t connected to a major university or in a major city. I no sooner got stopped in my bay when a swarm of interns, nurses and anesthesiologists descended on my like a locust swarm. Check this, connect that, gotta start your IV, how’s this…how’s that….SLOW DOWN PEOPLE!!!!!! They’re talking at an RPM higher than the MicroMachine Man. I’m now betting that most surgical interns and residents moonlight as “disclaimer guys” on car commercials. Now my prep nurse starts in with shaving my belly. INSERT OPPORTUNITY FOR POOR PATIENT HUMOR!!!! I politely ask the nurse if she’d be so kind as to shave it in the shape of a star. To which she replies, “No because once you see how far down this has to go you aren’t going to want me to get fancy.” Nuff said…..moving on!”
The funny guy we all know and love. I wanted to mention a part of a post that Marc wrote when returning from the first of the two surgeries… and point out how he would do whatever he could to be with his family over the last few months, it’s so clear how important they are to him, and you get to understand how they are all feeling through his writing:
“When they came in the first person up to see me was Christain. I think it was part checking in on me, part curiosity, part reassuring himself. But he brought up a couple of toys and asked if I’d play, which of course I obliged. After he got bored from those he said, “Daddy, can I go get some other toys and come back up and play?” I said sure. He brought back a fish shaped car and one of those “driver simulator” toy dashboards so we could go for a drive. There’s something amazing about kids…especially your own…but Christian has a gift. He’s incredibly compassionate. He really cares about people when they’re hurting or down, and he shows that he cares in simple, but loving ways. Whether it’s hugging his sisters, playing with Mommy’s hair, or staying with Daddy when he’s not feeling well to play driving games, you can’t stay unhappy when he’s around. Christian stayed with me through the whole night while I felt awful, and even tucked himself into bed next to me while I was watching the Red Sox game. He didn’t fall asleep until 10PM, but he kept looking up at me, giving me a pat on the leg or the arm, or asking when Big Papi would be up next. 4 Year Old meltdowns aside, he’s one incredible kid.”
it made me so happy to read this letter from Marc’s wife, Megan:
“Hooray!
After a long day of waiting in the surgical waiting room, I am happy to report that Marc’s liver resection surgery is over! He was in the OR for about 8 hours, but in that time his surgeons were able to remove as much tumor as they could find with no major complications and while conserving most of his liver. (I am sure that he will be happy to know that his wine processing should be only minimally affected!) Because he was in surgery so long, he will stay intubated and on a ventilator overnight while we wait for the anesthesia and pain medication that he received to wear off, but his surgeon does not anticipate that he will have any problem coming off the machine once he wakes up enough to breathe on his own. He likely will be in the hospital the better part of a week as his body recovers from the surgery and from a small leak of fluid from his liver, then will move towards setting up camp at home to finish recovering. I am sure that he will be typing away as soon as he can keep his eyes open long enough, as it is hard to keep him quiet for long!
(there is a pause here as I got an update on how he was doing and was able to go back to recovery room to see him)
After waiting for what seemed like forever, I was allowed to go back into the recovery room to see Marc (being a doctor is occasionally advantageous). Amazingly, he is alert and communicating, holding my hand, asking me whether he is in the ICU, asking what time it is, and debating with the nurse whether more pain medication will mean that he has to stay intubated longer. (He can’t even stop talking when on a ventilator!) He seems to be holding on to his sense of humor, laughing at my (not very funny) remarks and trying to be a wiseguy even now. He strength and resilience continues to be amazing and inspirational. I am so grateful that he is doing so well, and I am thankful for this measure of success.
Thank you so much to everyone who has offered support, love, prayers, help, food, kind thoughts and good wishes throughout this journey. We have been comforted and supported by your thoughts, and our strength and our ability to march on has been buoyed by your presence along this path. For all of this, we are all deeply grateful.
Marc may convince me to post again, but likely he will want to speak for himself soon enough. He will talk with you then!
Megan”
Let’s continue to keep Marc in our thoughts and pray that they were able to remove everything that they needed to and that he will have a full recovery. He’s been through a lot over the last few months so please get in touch with him, read his blog entries, and say hello on his guestbook.
You meet a lot of good people in your life, but of them there’s a few who are genuinely pure souls… for me, Marc Mandeville is one of those people and I can’t wish enough for his recovery, and for his life to get back to normal.
Visit the CaringBridge Site to read Marc’s journal and to check for updates.