My dad is having surgery today. Aghhh. It’s only minor surgery, which means he should be able to go home at the end of the day. He’s had the same type of surgery before. It’s his fourth time to go under the knife (and under the gas – anasthesia).
When my dad got diagnosed with cancer, the first year was really rough–he had a 10-hour surgery to remove the tumor, and looking back, I don’t even know how we survived it. Our doctor was a good friend of my dad’s from high school, so we knew he would do *anything* to make sure everything went OK. The biggest fear we all had, of course, was that Pop wouldn’t make it out of surgery, um, alive. But his doctor reassured us that that was just not going to happen.
But still, with major surgery, you can’t always predict…
At hospitals, there is a waiting room with several TVs where you can go and sit and wait while your loved one is in surgery. The nice thing about the waiting rooms now is that there is a phone, and every other hour or so, our doctor would call and talk to my mom and tell us how the surgery was going. So we had a lot of updates. It was a relief to have this, otherwise, for ten hours we would just have been so anxious we wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves.
The surgery went really well, and although recovery was tough (we had a terrible time in the ER when my dad got toxic shock from the bacteria in his blood – which is something that can happen from surgery), but in the end, everything has been fine.
A year ago, when the cancer came back, my dad had to have surgery again, and we were all prepared for another ten-hour wait. But then the doctor actually came OUT of the surgical room and into the waiting room maybe two hours into it. My mom and I looked up, totally SHOCKED. He was still wearing scrubs. This HAD to be the WORST news of our lives.
The doctor took one look at our faces and said, “Oh, no, don’t worry. He’s alive. Everything’s fine.”
It turned out that the doctor decided not to operate on the tumor, because he felt chemotheraphy would be better…
We sank back in our seats, totally relieved. We were kind of glad Pop didn’t have to have the major surgery again, but we were also distressed that the tumor was “inoperable.”
PHEW. Anyway, my dad went on this massive chemotherapy regimen with all those hot new drugs – he takes the “Martha Stewart” drug – Erbitux, made by Sam Wascal’s company. And early this year, his oncologist told us his scans were CLEAR. There was no trace of cancer found in his system! The tumor disappeared!
It’s crazy! Of course, it can come back (but we hope it doesn’t) and Pop has to go in for more scans in July to see how it is going, and his oncologist says he might put Pop back on the drug later this year, just to make sure, even if there is no trace of cancer.
Anyway, Pop’s surgery today is pretty minor, chemo causes a bunch of side-effects, and the surgery today will just take care of one of them. He’s had this minor surgery before, so we know it will be OK. But you know, you can’t help but be nervous.
I thought I was going to be able to get some work done this morning, but now I think I’ll just go to the bookstore to find a book to read while Pop’s in the operating room.
The book is going well now, at a steady clip. There’s a lot going on in it, and I think I’ve been a bit ambitious about what it’s about, but I *think* I can pull it off. I hope so.
I also found this really, really, really nice review of Blue Bloods on the web that a friend found, from a YA reviewer. Here are some pull quotes: “Its not like any other young adult novel Ive ever read. Cruz doesnt underestimate her readers which is something we find all to common in this genre…It is true and untamed fantasy meets modern realism.”
Yay!
And now, off to the hospital…
xoxo
Mel