"You are before everything in the long line of
Everything that brings me joy. You are first, You are water to my thirst. You are my favourite." --Shane Koyzcan, "Favourite" Today is a day that has been both long and short in coming. To recap: We first learned about Gayle's cancer on 20 October. We managed to get in to the surgeon's pretty quickly, setting up lots of appointments and plans in rapid succession. We had to stall in early November because the genetics test was pending, with doubts about it arriving in time to guide our decisions about whether to have a lumpectomy or mastectomy (or double-, perhaps). However, because of my untimely bout with COVID-19, we had to push back the surgery again. Thanksgiving (and COVID recovery) prevented us from any other surgery date, bringing us at last up to today. As I write this, Gayle is about halfway through the operation that will remove the lump from her left breast. Thus far, it's been a lot of hurry-up-and-wait: Yesterday, Gayle was given the instructions that she needed to follow. Because she had to come to the hospital fasting, she had a bowl of cereal at 11:30pm last night, then some water at around 2am as she scrambled to complete as many mask orders as she could before having to shut down for a while. Her appointment was set for 11:15am, and so--as I think most people would--we were at the hospital by 11:00am. There's always a bit of paperwork and the sense that you simply want to give yourself plenty of time for things like this. We took a quick selfie in the parking lot before walking in. We were brought back to a curtained pre-op waiting cubicle a little after 11:30am, where the questions that Gayle had already answered digitally on the hospital's website were asked again. (These same questions were then asked subsequently by every person who worked with her. I am certain there's a reason for this duplication--I just don't know what it is, as it kind of makes me feel like our answers weren't really listened to.) After getting into the paper clothes familiar to all hospital visitors, a nurse came in to try to find a friendly vein in Gayle's arm. Her veins are notoriously difficult to work with; they're as difficult to pin down as a politician and like to squirm out of the needle's way whenever someone gets close. As a result, she hates having to get IVs, shots, or blood drawn. Normally, she tries to drink a lot of water to try to help get her veins to stand out; unfortunately, she can't do that while fasting. Still, the nurse managed to get the IV in with relatively little difficulty, and though it was uncomfortable, Gayle was set up for the rest of the day's operations. The next phase was waiting. Lots and lots of waiting. Gayle needed a seed (a small, radioactive marker) put into her to help with the operation, but the nurses accidentally forgot that she was supposed to be taken to radiology at 12:45pm. It was after 1:00 when they finally showed up. I sat on the immensely uncomfortable, basically pad-less chair, waiting for Gayle to come back while reading a Brandon Sanderson wiki to remind myself what had happened in the first part of Oathbringer (which I stopped reading back in 2018, I think, so I was fuzzy on a lot of what had happened). I read. And read. And read. I finally finished my recap-read just a few moments before Gayle returned from radiology. Her worry about the IV now out of the way, this was the part she was most concerned about, but she came back smiling (I'm assuming; we're both wearing breast cancer awareness masks) and in pretty good spirits. We got her transferred back to the bed and waited some more. Our original timing for the beginning of the actual operation was 2:00pm, but due to this delay, the breast cancer surgeon didn't show up to talk to us about what we were doing until after 2:30pm. By the time we'd finished our pre-op conversation, it was almost 3:00pm. I walked with Gayle down the short hallway; they gurneyed her to the right while I headed straight to the general waiting room. It's been just over an hour, now, and so far, no news means good news. Hungry, I puttered over to a nearby JCW's, paying too much for the burger and waiting for too long in the drive thru. Nevertheless, I got back to the hospital before an update even came through. So, now I sit in the empty waiting room, watching the golden-orange sunlight slant through the large windows as this wintery day comes to its close. I can see the snake of traffic slither up and down the street, chatting with the nurse behind the desk. (Her daughter, she was quick to tell me upon finding out that I teach English, is a recent English grad from UVU and is struggling to find a job.) I find solace and distraction in words and slam shut mental images of Gayle on the OR table with the worst happening. _______________________________________________________________________________ Eventually, the doctor walked through the door to explain that everything went well. Here are the details: Our biggest concern was that the cancer had spread into the lymph nodes. There wasn't any evidence to suggest that it had corrupted more than one that was visible in the ultrasound, but we knew we wouldn't get a perfectly clear picture until the actual surgery. The surgeon explained that they did extra four or five extra nodes, which came back negative for any cancer. The tumor--which was about the size of a half-dollar coin--was extracted. The only wrinkle they weren't expecting was that they had to remove some of the muscle, as the tumor was quite close to it. The doctor doesn't foresee any problems stemming from this, nor were there any other unusual problems. While I felt like it went really long, it was within the two hour window of expected time to wait. After about half an hour, I was sent to the waiting cubicle. Gayle was curled up in her familiar position (she's an all-sides sleeper for the most part, but she prefers to sleep on her right side), though ashen and sickly looking when I came around the bed to see her. She slowly worked her way through to consciousness. I held her hand and she gave it a squeeze. Some Sprite through a straw helped undo her dry mouth, though, mysteriously, they also gave her saltine crackers to give her stomach something to work with. Strange choice to go along with dry-mouth side effects. I read a few pages, but for the most part I just watched her, seeing the precious pulse on her throat and the steady rise-and-fall of her breaths. I ran over to the nearby pharmacy once they'd faxed over the prescription for pain meds, but otherwise I spent my time next to Gayle, helping her along as best I could. Though steadily deliberate, we got to the point of Gayle standing up enough to dress. I let the nurse wheel her to the exit while I got the car pulled up, heat churning. After strapping Gayle in and bundling her beneath her excess jackets from her backseat collection, I drove her home. We arrived at about 7:30pm--the entire day had been spent at the hospital. I helped her into the house, planning on navigating the stairs with her, only for her to insist on taking the couch. I helped to get her settled there, gratefully received a meal from a caring neighbor, and even fed Gayle a bit of cinnamon-sugar toast before slipping off to the store to pick up some more medications that we still needed. Now I'm writing these last words in this update. I have a lot of feelings, but they're mostly of gratitude for her safe-passage through the surgery and a hope that all will continue to be well. I am immensely grateful to all who've prayed, fasted, good-thought'd, and positive vibed toward Gayle at this time. She is my all and everything, and though it hurt to see her in pain, I'm relieved that the cancer-bomb silently ticking away in her chest has been defused. Here's hoping that the rest of the recovery goes as smoothly. Comments are closed.
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July 2021
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