Day 2 Post Surgery

Hello Everybody!

This blog has been quite a success-I had no idea what a GREAT idea this was! That Andy, he's full of them. I haven't called a single person back though I truly appreciate all of the phone calls and emails-this blog just makes it easy to communicate and tell everyone what's up without having to repeat the same thing over and over, so I'm loving it. My focus is with my family right now as I know you all know and understand, but we will surely be getting in touch with all of you in the next week or so. It makes me tear up (happy tears) when I read comments in the blog and how much you all are keeping up with us and holding us up with your energy and prayer from wherever you are. WE FEEL IT! I've been telling Andy how much he's gonna love reading through it and how flattered he will be by our fan club! Geez! I mean I'm expecting the paparazzi any moment.

Unfortunately our hospital room doesn't have internet so he can't really check, nor is up for doing too much other than sleeping and passing a lil' gas right now (this is what we want!) So I'll keep the blog up until he can get back on here and you can hear it from the hero himself.

So the update: We don't have any word from the pathology reports yet and it will most surely be tomorrow, but truthfully folks, the results from that won't change too much how we will proceed after he gets out of the hospital. The doctors are recommending chemo no matter what, just to make sure. It's either spread to his surrounding lymphnodes or it hasn't (stage 2 or stage 3), but it is not growing anywhere else besides what they took out (that would be a stage 4 and much more unfortunate). They actually took out all of his organs during surgery to feel for swollen nodes and look for cancer and then stuffed em all back in-is that not bizarre? Regardless of a Stage 2 or 3, they are recommending chemo because of his age and how well he can handle it, so most likely we're just gonna do it and get er done. Some good news that we've been told by the docs (and docs don't tell you things if they don't think it's true), is that he WON'T NEED RADIATION, AND HE WON'T LOOSE HIS HAIR! So all of you that were on board with me to shave your head, I guess we should put away those shavers because it won't be necessary. I may shave my legs though, just because.

They say the first day after surgery is the toughest. Well, all of us here do agree, and it just no fun for any of us later yesterday. He was doing quite well throughout the day, but then they made him get up a couple of times to just sit up and get things moving a bit, and it hurt him real bad and made him feel super woozy and he had a lot of stuck gas and it just truly sucked. Last night was heartbreaking how much pain he was in, but we got through it and I believe that was the worst of the pain. Actually, I've just been super demanding and made all the nurses promise me they will not let it get to that point again. He has an epidural, and the biggest issue yesterday was that they didn't quite know the perfect combination of drugs to give him, so they just weren't working as well until they figured out his chemistry with the meds. After he got up and was in so much pain, and while they figured what combo they needed to whip together for his epidural, we (we, as if i'm a nurse) kept injecting his IV with more and more morphine just to get through the minute. Beleive me, we got it all figured out now, and the poor guy is completely numb from chest to ass and doesn't feel much at all. (ASS, i bet the most commonly used word is this blog.) I know that feels weird to him, but weird is better than misery, so we'll stick with that for now!

Not to get all sappy on you, but during his pain last night, we just tried to focus on other things besides the pain. "Visualization" they call it, right? I really think it worked for us! (Well, a little of that and a hell of alota of drugs). It was his idea, to focus away from the pain and to focus on other things in his mind, so we decided to focus on all of the beautiful places we've been. The photo at the top of this blog was one of the most stunningly scenic snapshots we've seen together-the sunset with the longtail boats overlooking the Andaman Sea on Ko Phi Phi Island in Thailand on our honeymoon. So I busted out my most poetic self to describe these pretty places that he could visualize in his mind, and I think it worked! It was actually quite romantic. I highly recommend Visualization. Talk to your doctor about the morphine.

TODAY, the boy is rockin'! He is doing so so so so well, a complete turnaround since last night. We were up at 6AM with the nurse just sitting up like he tried yesterday, and he did so well and had no pain and was so optimistic and it was a very happy moment. It was so reassuring how much the body can heal in just little time! He needed that reassurance with himself and he got it, and he knows he will get through this. All docs have come in and checked him out and say he is adjusting/healing/reacting just fine and normally, so he is ALL GOOD PEOPLE!

I do know that we have a long road ahead of us and that's been sortof hard for my brain to process. I guess it's been such an emotional week or more, so when the surgery was finally done, I thought, "yeah, we're done!" Not so much, but that's OK. The key is to take this day by day and remember that the worst is behind us and now we just have to focus on the healing. All the details, there are many to work out. In the past, too many details would have freaked me out. Today, these details are a privledge to work through, one day at a time.

Love yall, an indescribable amount.