Trip to Mayo: Day 2 -- Playing Heads Up with the Big C

We found out that we needed to report to the hospital surgical unit at 9:30 Tuesday morning. We were hoping that Rick could get in during the morning so that everything would be done by the end of the afternoon. Unfortunately, we found out later that Rick was the healthiest person on the doctor's surgery list that day, so they made him the last one. We waited five hours before he was taken to pre-op. After 90 minutes in pre-op he was finally ready to go -- at 4:00 p.m.!

After 2 hours we were told that the initial surgery had been done and that the doctors were waiting on some new pathology reports. Unfortunately, the initial pathology reports were correct -- the mass was cancerous. They had to do some additional surgery and remove additional tissue. It appears that the cancer spread to only one lymph node. We are hopeful that the final pathology reports will show that that was the extent of the spreading.

So ... he was in surgery for quite some time, and even closing him up took more time. After what seemed an eternity, we finally got to see our boy after midnight. He actually did not look that bad. He was tired, so we left, got a few hours of sleep, and went back to the hospital early this morning. He seems to be doing okay. He'll need to spend an additional night in the hospital.

We were hoping to catch a Royal Flush, but that eluded us. However, it looks like we won the pot and are certainly thankful for that. If the rest of the pathology report comes back clean, I think we will have gotten away as best we could considering everything.

There will be some things Rick will have to cope with -- some temporary paralysis and some cosmetic issues. He will have to be vigilant the rest of his life. However, we think that we caught this early enough so that cancer has been felted.

I'll hopefully update some more this evening. It looks like the worst is over. We are hopeful. We are thankful.