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The News and the Additional Notes

General

When Alan had his surgery back in June, there were lots of post-op complications. One of the more inconsequential ones (or so I thought) was the fluid that pooled in the parts of his abdomen that shouldn’t have had any fluid. To fix the problem, they took him to a special section of the hospital, pushed plastic tubes through his skin and snaked the tubes past the muscle and and the tissue to drain the pools of fluid. The fluid collected in two bags on the outside of his body which he would pin to his shirt when he needed to be mobile. In between all the hospital stays, Alan was released for a few days and we went to see Up. He clipped the bags to his shirt and people stared. He does not remember this day.

I don’t know what I expected at the doctor’s appointment today. Maybe that the doctor would come in and hand Alan a sheet of paper with “Clean Bill of Health” printed at the top and an A+ hand written in the middle. It’d be a nice touch if we also got ribbons or stickers for our shirts, but I knew that, realistically, that might be asking for a bit too much. Instead, she came in and told us that the CT scan and the bloodwork indicated that Alan’s cancer is most likely gone. Then she said that the areas where the tubes had collected fluid from back in June looked inflamed. She added that what looked like inflammation could be cancer, but that they couldn’t be sure. To be sure, they needed to do another scan. The scan has been scheduled, but because they are completely booked, it will not happen until later this month or sometime next month. And after that, the surgeon and the GI will determine when he can have his intestines re-connected. She estimates that that will happen in the next 3-4 months. So it is mostly very excellent news, but the clean bill of health has an “additional notes” section which reads sort of like this:

You are well! (We are pretty sure). Come back in the next couple of months and we will see if we can’t get you that pretty blue ribbon.

So, while we’re happy, it still feels as though we’re holding our breaths. Just a little bit.

On another note, thank you all so much for your positive thoughts and well wishes!!! You have all helped me through many moments of darkness, and for that, I present a shiny, clickable link for each of you.

Last modified: January 10, 2019