December 17, 2009

How about this? Two days in a row!

Anne and I met with Dr. Alberts, an oncologist here at Mayo today. He basically said that as long as all of the pathology looks good, Anne may not need any more chemotherapy. That would be cool, of course. We met with Dr. Nagorney, the liver surgeon this morning as well. Unfortunately, we had hoped she could have her surgery done endoscopically, but apparently they won't be doing it that way because of he extent of what they have to cut out. Also, the combination of needing to do the colon with the liver makes it better to do it open. Apparently, on a good news front, the embolization procedure Anne had a month ago did what it was supposed to do--shrink the right lobe of the liver and make te left side grow bigger. Dr. Wolff, the colorectal surgeon will be starting he surgery tomorrow, with Dr. Nagorney following. We will be checking in to the Methodist Hospital at 7:45am--which means that she won't be going first at 8:00, but probably their 2nd case of the morning. I mentioned on the previous blog that we had checked in to a hotel across the street from St. Mary's Hospital. That's because we were under the impression that that was where she was having the surgery. We were wrong. So, we checked out of the SpringHill Suites and into the Kahler Grand, where we've stayed both other times we were here. They actually recognized us--we've got to stop coming here. This is an older hotel but it's in a perfect spot. You can get just about everywhere you need to go underground which is a good thing considering it's cold enough to freeze off body parts I really can't mention in a blog. I wound up reserving a second room for the girls for when they come.

I found this Bible verse recently:

"A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person's
strength. "
Proverbs 17:22, NLT

I think this is where they got "laughter is the best medicine from". I've been trying to keep cheerful throughout this whole journey of ours--and trying to make Anne laugh as much as I can. We have had a lot of fun, spending a lot more time with each other than we have been able to over the past many years--mainly because of my work. Anne was asked if she would contribute to a new study they're doing here about colon and pelvic surgery. There were a lot of questions about sex in it--and boy can I do lots of jokes about that. She kept "shushing" me when she started filling it out in the exam room while we were waiting--which only made me crack even more jokes about it. The other side of this is how your strength can be sapped from you if you are constantly worrying, fretting, or whatever else you want to call it. There's no benefit from walking around being depressed, but if you have faith in God, you will give your troubles over to Him, and rejoice in the fact that God ("Father") knows best, and His will be done.

Thanks again for all of your prayers.

God Bless,
Tony