So I am sitting in a hotel across the street from the hospital, typing with my forefinger on my trusty iPad. The fact that I am doing so means that the surgery turned out to be an outpatient procedure, which is what we in our household call “ fun beans.” I didn’t have to stay in the hospital overnight.
The tumor came out readily, and the surgeon didn’t have to take out any lymph nodes, which is also a good thing. I wanted to keep all my lymph nodes. I was using them.
We will find out within a week or so, when a fuller pathology report comes back, whether any additional treatment (e.g. radiation) might be needed. So the prayer request at this point would be that we could just be done with this little distracting episode, and I might go back to the much more gratifying task of using perfectly reasonable sentiments to cause certain constituencies to start barking at the moon. But as fun as that might be, we were not put into this world for pleasure alone.
I want to make a particular point of thanking God for having everything go so smoothly. He answered many prayers. I wanted to thank Nancy, who has been a marvelous trooper throughout. She has written on the grace and discipline of contentment, and she really practices what she preaches. I want to thank Dr. Brian Mitchell for his steady hands and lucid explanations, along with the very competent and cheerful staff at Sacred Heart in Spokane. Everybody was great. I also want to make a special point of thanking all the saints at Christ Church who have been ladling prayer over the top of this thing, all the folks from all over tarnation who have been praying for me also, and our friends at Christ Church Spokane who thoughtfully delivered a bag full of nutrients. I really have felt prayed for. In fact, I felt like there was so much prayer that Dr. Mitchell might have been able to perform the surgery with a couple of popsicle sticks, not that we would have thought of asking for it. That would have been testing God, in my view. And last, I want to thank my kids who came up to keep Nancy company in the waiting room, and who were an enormous practical help in a number of ways. All said, from the beginning of this paragraph to the end of it, I love my people.
And if you all don’t mind, I will update you further as events warrant.