The surgery was successful. I’m okay and back home. The Doctor sent 30 pathology samples out and I was zero for thirty for cancer. In effect, I’m cancer free (and bladder free unfortunately.) This is great news. While the time between Jan 15 and today has been a blur it was still full of great stories and great people. Some of the post headlines I have ready to drop in the next few weeks include:

Dilaudid is Your Friend
Tressa Is My Boo
Hospitals Are True Worm Holes for Time
What is the Lap Record Around This Floor?
Is That Really a Guard by the Guy’s Room?
Pride – I Laugh In Your General Direction
Whose Blood Vial is That On My Bed?

But before I get lost in the narratives around my hospital adventures and misadventures I want to have a special post today. That post is about my wife Jill.

Fear – Real Fear

My wife Jill was with me the entire time I was in the hospital. I don’t mean spiritually, mentally, in thought and or in prayer. I mean she was with me. And it was the most important thing that I’ve experienced since I met her.

I think many of us are afraid to admit when we’re scared – men especially. But I’m not going to lie to you. I was scared. Not haunted house scared. I was child-scared. Scared that everything in my life for the next minutes, hours, weeks, and months was completely and totally out of my control. I had no input.

I was freaking out.

And yet there was my wife. Next to me, smiling. Not showing how she was feeling. That made the difference.

I think most people worry about the person going under the knife. That they are the ones to think about and have empathy for.

They aren’t.

Feel for those in the waiting room. That is where the true suffering is.

Timelessness and Infinity

Think of it this way. The 10 hours I was in surgery I remember exactly ZERO of it. I have no memory. I was in timelessness. Nothing touched me. I went to sleep. I woke up. It was over.

My wife on the other hand was in infinity. She had to experience the entire 10 hours of my surgery, minute by minute, hour by hour. There was no – “count backward from 100 and you’re be out” for her. She was awake for the entire procedure. Imagine the waiting? Luckily for us the hospital had someone come down and talk to her each and every hour about the progress.

I am sorry she had to go through it. It was much, much harder than my task.

And continues to be.

On The Mend

I am on the mend. But that takes some help too, from cleaning and giving injections and checking on all sorts of things that Jill does for me without even knowing how much it matters to me (I tell her but I think she thinks it is just me being nice… it’s not – it is me being grateful!!!) I am so lucky to have her.

I will live a long time trying to return that bit of timelessness she gave me in exchange for her infinity.

It will be my #1 on my bucket list (now that I know I have more time to finish it!)