Release Day!

Yep.  Dad was cleared to go home this morning, around 8:30...he was originally told it would be around 10am, so Mom was home, doing her normal exercise, breakfast, clean up routine...Dad would have to continue sitting around the hospital, in his fashionable hospital gown, enjoying the breezes, as he had no clothes to change into.  He's very excited to get home, even though it's tough for him to sit up for any length of time.  The pressure hurts the incision when sitting for very long, but in a more reclined position, he feels good.  He really doesn't complain there is much pain.  YAY! For you strong-stomached people, here's his incision:

Lab results...so, they did show traces of cancer that had escaped that muscle wall.  I'm not much for technical terms, so to keep it simple, here goes:  The next 6 weeks he'll be taking it easy.  No heavy lifting, no basketball playing, no yard work, and certainly no picking up of our solid kids.  After 6 weeks are over, he's cleared to go back to normal activities.  Most importantly, he's ready to take the croquet trophy from Troy, at the beach, and get it back to where, he thinks, it belongs.  (They won't be cutting him slack, I assure you!) Whoop!  Mid-September, however, they will install a port and begin 12 chemo treatments over a 24 week period.  Booo.  The medicine will "drip" every other weekend for 42 hours.  The type chemo he'll be on will make him tired, but shouldn't make him nauseated or lose his hair.  Yay!  So, the surgery was a success, and we all feel better about the fact they'll be zapping the ugly cancer cells, just to be safe, and make sure we don't deal with this crap again, moving forward.  Cancer is a very ugly, unpredictable disease, and they'll be monitoring him from now....on.  So, all and all, we are very pleased with the outcome, and are thankful that it was caught when it was.  GET YOUR COLONOSCOPY PEOPLE!  Evidently JP and I will be blessed with colonoscopies, every 5 years, starting at 40.  (Ooops, that means now, for me.  Grrrr!) Thank you all for your thoughts, prayers, texts, emails, and phone calls.  It really helps us all knowing you are thinking about my Dad!

Today is also a very important day for some friends of ours, the Joneses.  Barb and Josh's 3 year old daughter, Libby, has been battling ALL, a type of leukemia, since March.  She has been undergoing chemo treatments, and they feel she is cancer-free!!!  BUT, she needs a bone marrow transplant to make sure it never comes back.  Josh's brother, Clay, was a perfect match!  Today is the day for the big procedure, and they have asked everyone to wear pink.  So, for Libby....