GET WELL MARK
On monday mark howe of Esher war memorial club was diagnosed with a brain tumour. He is being operated on at 9 am on wednesday feb 28th at st georges hospital tooting. The surgeons expect the operation to go well and hope for mark to have a speedy recovery. Any body that would like to pass on their best wishes to mark please reply or pm me i will see that he gets them and i know he would be very grateful for them. thankyou all for your support in advance

Best Wishes
It goes without saying that all that know Mark are wishing him well and a speedy recovery. I am sure that all of us in the surrey darts circles think the same. Best wishes and good health to you Mark.

Pass on best wishes from me & Claire please Bob. Hope the operation goes smoothly.

and from me bob. Always seems to be the good ones

I understand from Bob that the procedure wasn't as straightforward as had been hoped. Mark had to endure two operations instead of one as complications arose and a blood-clot had to be removed. After a time in Intensive Care, Mark is now awake but according to Bob, "not great". Our thoughts are, I'm sure, with Mark, Bob & their family.

mark spent 10 hours in surgery on wednesday enduring a total of three operations. the tumor was much larger than expected and was embedded much deeper intothe brain than first shown. as of 6am thursday he was awake and by 630 was breathing on his own. i arrived at hospital a 8 and was actually talking to mark by 830 he has compleate movement of all limbs and is fully aware of everything and everybody around him. at approx 915 am marks ventilator tube was replaced to assist with his breathing and was duly placed under sedation again. this is due to severe swelling of his throat and chest areas, thus stopping him from breathing on his own. mark will remain like this till at earliest saturday morning and likely to remain in intensive care till at least wednesday of next week. this evening i have been talking again to mark and he is showing signs of recovery, we have been told to expect his condition to fluctuate though. when i left the the hospital tonight mark was in a stable condition and the nurses were pleased with his progress. this last week has been hell for mark and ourselves and we would like to thank everybody for their continued support. lets keep praying that mark will be ok.

get well soon..........
Mate i'm so sorry to read this bad news, but really hope everything goes well from here on in ! Mine and i'm sure all the Salfords teams best wishes go out to all of your family, especially Mark for a speedy and full recovery. Hope to see you for a beer on Tues down at our place ; all the best !!! Ben.

Bob, Sorry to hear the terrible news concerning Mark, our thoughts are with Mark and your family mate. We all wish Mark a speedy recovery and look foward to seeing him on the Oche soon. All the best from the Princess lads.

I don't know Mark but I would like to pass on my best wishes to him and his family.

Get well soon Mark, all the best for a speedy recovery. Hope to see you back on the oche soon.

marks recovery was going fantastically well and the surgeons were amazed with his recovery rate. well this was up until last wednesday, when nothing short of a disaster struck. mark had contracted a pneumonia like infection in his lungs, this had caused one of them to collapse. this infection spread to his brain fluid in the form of meningitis. marks heart rate was racing reaching 200 at times and his blood pressure had dropped to 79, the ananestatist at this point was unable to react at any actions taken on one would affect the other in a negeative way. after scans and thearte marks condition return to a semi stable state, but he since has remained in a coma and looks likely to for the not to distant future. we spoke to a surgeon on friday and he told us of the situation and told us to prepare for the worst.he told us of the anti biotics they would be using and there methods of application through the veins and directly into the brain he said this was an extremely intense way of giving these drugs and compared similarities with a nuclear arsenal. he also remarked on marks incredible strength and fitness from the previous weeks surgery and told us any body of lesser fitness would of quiet frankly in his opinon died. mark has remained in the coma till today and is compleatly unresponsive at this time and still very seriously ill. today marks has again been scanned and we have again spoken to francis johnson the surgeon he informed us that the anti biotics are working and that in his opinion the cause of marks coma is purely the meningitis and he is optimistic that once it clears mark can wake up and begin to make a full recovery. obviously its still early days and as we have already found out there is severe ups and downs along the way. basically we just have to wait and pray once again may i thank you for all of your support and urge you all to pray for mark

Bloody hell - sounds like a nightmare ! all the best mate.

Ben thats what i feel but didn't quite know how to put in words. My thoughts are with Mark and you Bob, also lots of others feel the same but find it difficult to know what to say at a difficult time like this. Keep beleiving that it will work out ok.

Best wishes to Mark, I hope he makes a full recovery soon. xxx

The missus just read what has happened to Mark and it brought a tear to her eye. My mum suffered a similar illness a few years back,(brain haemhorage) she also had a pretty long time in surgery and spent a long time recouperating. She made a full recovery and is now enjoying retirement. Point being, she has done it, so can you Mark. All my best wishes go to you Bob and all your family and hope for a steady recovery.