I’m going to let the cat right out of the bag for today’s post: Tom is completely crushing his recovery. We had a fun morning of appointments, but all yielded great results. There was a small part of me that was worried they would see us today and say they read pathology wrong, or while we were cancer free they highly suggested a “clean up” chemo. Thank goodness none of that happened – my heart couldn’t have taken that.
Tom started the day with an X-ray of his chest. Given that they had to take part of his lung, they wanted to check to make sure that the lung was recovering and that it was expanding the way it was supposed to. After the X-ray we went right up to see our surgeon for the post-surgical checkup. Tom’s surgery was exactly two weeks ago today and when the surgeon’s Physician Assistant, who also worked with us post-surgery, came in to the room she said Tom looked “awesome” and was so impressed with his attitude, color in his face, ability to move around, and how all the incisions were healing. She remarked that she has lots of patients who come in two weeks after surgery and are still very weak, in a bit of a slump, and have a much harder time. As of today, Tom is almost completely off of the strong narcotic pain killers and just using the prescription strength ibuprofen. Plus, his ability to move and get up and down on his own is getting better and better each day. I’m so amazed by how well he is doing and admire how much he is pushing himself.
Next, the surgeon came in, closed the door behind him and said “Did you have surgery?” with a big smile on his face. He too was very pleased with Tom’s recovery, checked on the incisions and gave us the rundown of what to expect next. Tom needs to recover for about 4 more weeks and will continue to have lifting restrictions - but he got the all clear to drive. After four weeks, he is good to start going back to work and all restrictions will be lifted but of course he will need to be careful as he gets back to his new routine and not try to do too much too fast. We will see the surgeon in about four months, but so far things are looking great.
Next we met with our oncologist and got a plan for all the pieces of that puzzle. Tom’s port will be coming out next week and I can promise you he will not miss it one bit. He doesn’t even go under to get it out since all they need to do is pull it out versus the intricacies of it going in and getting in the veins. It will be quick, and mostly painless. There will be another incision on his chest with stitches that will need to heal, but at this point given the tumor surgery, another small incision doesn’t seem like much. Right now if you played Connect the Incisions (a derivative of Connect the Dots) you’d have a strange looking hexagon. If you add in all the bruises from the daily shots then you’ve got a 1st graders art piece – lots of chaos. Regardless, another incision is one step closer to the end of this all so he doesn’t even care – let’s get it out. Obviously, the next year is still going to involve lots of doctors. For at least the next year and a half we will do scans and bloodwork every three months. Certainly that’s not fun, and there will be nerves before we get the results, but I’m honestly glad that we need to do them at this frequency because I do think it will provide some peace of mind knowing that we can catch any problems. That said, our oncologist said today that Tom has been cured of cancer. He is not considered to be in remission, he is considered cured. I get goosebumps just typing it.
For both of our appointments today I had Thank You cards for our doctors. Thank You doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what they’ve done for us, but they really became such an important part of our lives. Tom promised me he would grow old with me and there were moments in all of this that I thought that might not happen. Without this team of doctors I’m not sure he would have been able to keep his promise. The insane amount of dedication our doctors have to their practice and patients is unbelievable and inspiring. Today felt like a bit of a “goodbye” because we won’t see them nearly as frequent (we are 100% okay with that!) and it was the first time we saw them since he was declared cancer free in the hospital – for the first time in six months we really had joyous appointments with all our doctors, and their staffs, with lots of hugs and smiles. We even had various staff pop into our exam rooms that have worked with us through this whole thing to celebrate because they too were rooting for us. The only word I can use to describe today is grateful. Grateful for our doctors, their staff, their patience, our friends, our family and so many other things. After a very long six months it was incredibly energizing to know that we are so close to the end of the fight. More to come…
Tom started the day with an X-ray of his chest. Given that they had to take part of his lung, they wanted to check to make sure that the lung was recovering and that it was expanding the way it was supposed to. After the X-ray we went right up to see our surgeon for the post-surgical checkup. Tom’s surgery was exactly two weeks ago today and when the surgeon’s Physician Assistant, who also worked with us post-surgery, came in to the room she said Tom looked “awesome” and was so impressed with his attitude, color in his face, ability to move around, and how all the incisions were healing. She remarked that she has lots of patients who come in two weeks after surgery and are still very weak, in a bit of a slump, and have a much harder time. As of today, Tom is almost completely off of the strong narcotic pain killers and just using the prescription strength ibuprofen. Plus, his ability to move and get up and down on his own is getting better and better each day. I’m so amazed by how well he is doing and admire how much he is pushing himself.
Next, the surgeon came in, closed the door behind him and said “Did you have surgery?” with a big smile on his face. He too was very pleased with Tom’s recovery, checked on the incisions and gave us the rundown of what to expect next. Tom needs to recover for about 4 more weeks and will continue to have lifting restrictions - but he got the all clear to drive. After four weeks, he is good to start going back to work and all restrictions will be lifted but of course he will need to be careful as he gets back to his new routine and not try to do too much too fast. We will see the surgeon in about four months, but so far things are looking great.
Next we met with our oncologist and got a plan for all the pieces of that puzzle. Tom’s port will be coming out next week and I can promise you he will not miss it one bit. He doesn’t even go under to get it out since all they need to do is pull it out versus the intricacies of it going in and getting in the veins. It will be quick, and mostly painless. There will be another incision on his chest with stitches that will need to heal, but at this point given the tumor surgery, another small incision doesn’t seem like much. Right now if you played Connect the Incisions (a derivative of Connect the Dots) you’d have a strange looking hexagon. If you add in all the bruises from the daily shots then you’ve got a 1st graders art piece – lots of chaos. Regardless, another incision is one step closer to the end of this all so he doesn’t even care – let’s get it out. Obviously, the next year is still going to involve lots of doctors. For at least the next year and a half we will do scans and bloodwork every three months. Certainly that’s not fun, and there will be nerves before we get the results, but I’m honestly glad that we need to do them at this frequency because I do think it will provide some peace of mind knowing that we can catch any problems. That said, our oncologist said today that Tom has been cured of cancer. He is not considered to be in remission, he is considered cured. I get goosebumps just typing it.
For both of our appointments today I had Thank You cards for our doctors. Thank You doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what they’ve done for us, but they really became such an important part of our lives. Tom promised me he would grow old with me and there were moments in all of this that I thought that might not happen. Without this team of doctors I’m not sure he would have been able to keep his promise. The insane amount of dedication our doctors have to their practice and patients is unbelievable and inspiring. Today felt like a bit of a “goodbye” because we won’t see them nearly as frequent (we are 100% okay with that!) and it was the first time we saw them since he was declared cancer free in the hospital – for the first time in six months we really had joyous appointments with all our doctors, and their staffs, with lots of hugs and smiles. We even had various staff pop into our exam rooms that have worked with us through this whole thing to celebrate because they too were rooting for us. The only word I can use to describe today is grateful. Grateful for our doctors, their staff, their patience, our friends, our family and so many other things. After a very long six months it was incredibly energizing to know that we are so close to the end of the fight. More to come…
