Big Surgery and Tiny Goals

It has been over a month since I posted, and many things have happened in the interim.

The biggest thing is that our trip to the comprehensive cancer center in June gave us a big surprise: they recommended an extensive surgical removal of the cancer followed by radiation and chemo.  They were talking about an 8-10 hour surgery and 7-10 days in the hospital. We were blindsided by this and opted to go to another comprehensive cancer center to get a second opinion.  (The good thing about that was that we got to enjoy a trip to Charleston and stay with my father!  MUSC's head-neck center is excellent and we knew we'd get good advice there.)

The third opinion was 100% on board with the second, and cancer doctors are wonderful about not wasting time, and on July 3 my husband underwent an 11-hour surgery.  The surgery showed that the cancer was more extensive than we'd anticipated (although I think his surgeon suspected this).  Our surgeon removed 30% of his oral tongue and 50% of the base of tongue and reconstructed the tongue using a 12"x4" swath of tissue from my husband's left arm.  He also had to remove part of the hyoid bone.  He did a radical neck dissection to remove all the lymph nodes in my husband's neck, and as part of this he had to remove part of the jugular vein because the cancer was there, too. Amazing, but he got all the gross cancer in my husband's body, and radiation and chemotherapy should mop up any rogue microscopic cells.  We were in the hospital for a week in another state, away from our children, and came home last Tuesday.  It's wonderful to be home!

When we first heard the recommendation for surgery we were genuinely terrified and resistant.  It seemed so vast and scary. But we did an enormous amount of research, praying, talking to people, and God swiftly and obviously answered our prayers for clarity. 

A few days after surgery my husband--who had a tracheostomy and a feeding tube, not to mention several wound sites--was walking several miles each day around the hospital floor.

Two weeks after surgery and he's off the trach and tube (those were pulled before we left the hospital) and walking 5 miles many mornings.  He's still quite tired and needs naps, but his recovery has been amazing so far.

Now he's healing and we'll start radiation and chemotherapy at the cancer center in a few weeks. We will spend about 6-7 weeks living away from home (although we hope to return home on weekends).  That will be an adventure!

Throughout all of this we have witnessed and received so much grace, love, kindness, encouragement, vision, and mercy from God and from so many people.  It has been the most humbling experience of my life.

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Back here at home I'm working on some of my goals.  My primary goals for the week and a half between hospital release and post-operative visit (other than the obvious things like caring for my family, feeding them, laundering, cleaning house, etc!) were to administer my children's state-required standardized tests, to order everything we'll need for our upcoming school year, and to weed and mulch my flower beds.  These were time-consuming tasks!  This is the first year that I had two children to test, and I am happy to report that Annie is done and Finn only has one more test section to go!  I also spent an afternoon and evening earlier this week (it was raining--couldn't mulch) on school planning. I have all of Finn's items for the school year ordered and most of Annie's. 

We got a truckload of mulch on Saturday and I'm working diligently in the flower beds most days--pulling weeds, pruning anything that needs it, and spreading mulch. It's hot but rewarding work.  The home health nurse who checks on my husband came in today and told us it's her birthday.  I expressed empathy that she has to work on her birthday.  "Yes," she said, "but seeing your beautiful flowers out there was wonderful and made me happy!"  I admit that I love my flower gardening and am glad that it makes other people happy as well.  Right now the hostas are in blooms, as are the shasta daisies, black-eyed susans, and the few morning glories I'm allowing to creep over the porch.  Everything is lush and green. 

Having little tiny goals set for tiny windows of time works well for me right now, as it's hard to do any planning beyond about a week or two these days.  The next batch of goals will include children's doctor visits (already scheduled for next week), having our house pressure-washed and the new deck and old porch stained (and painting the porch ceiling and trim for the first time *ever!*), a haircut, radiation/chemo consults, tidying the patio, celebrating my husband's birthday, making lodging arrangements for our time out of state, and organizing our school room.

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Doing these homey tasks is so satisfying in the face of something like cancer.  Cancer feels large and threatening and scary....because it is large and threatening and scary. But there's no point in shrinking in fear.  Life continues and I think it's healthy and so important to continue to cook good food, care for the house, read to our children, and take walks outside. Many people have asked how our children are doing. They are doing remarkably well, even though the separation during surgery was tough. They are happy children and are not worried or anxious.  I think this may be the trickle-down effect: we aren't overly worried or anxious, and the atmosphere in our home is peaceful. 

Our next obstacle will be radiation and chemotherapy, but homeschooling allows us to all be together as a family through that (so grateful!!!!) and we are going to make the best of it by enjoying slow days and each other, and playing "tourist" in the other state as long as my husband feels up to it!

I hope to resume my little series on habits  soon.  Our pastor has also asked me to start writing a devotional series to be debuted during Advent (based on what he has read on my husband's health website/blog, that I've been keeping up to date) and I may start thinking about working on that soon. In the meantime, cancer is part of our lives, but so are love and faith and joy and kindness and peace! And God is always good.