Last Wednesday's post was titled something along the lines of "is it Wednesday"? It applies to today, too. Amazing how easy it is to lose track of the day/date when your routine is interrupted. I did figure out, late this afternoon, that it IS Wednesday.
Rob is doing so well. We met his co-workers a couple of days last week for lunch, and today he joined them for Johnny's pizza. Johnny's Pizza Wednesday......Kind of an office tradition. While at Johnny's last week, Dr. Jackson called to let us know that the lymph nodes were NEGATIVE. NO PERINEURAL OR PERIVASCULAR INVOLVEMENT. She did say that the thickest area of the tumor that was cancerous was 6mm. Anything greater than 4mm requires excision of lymph nodes for evaluation. So, he would still be facing the neck dissection later, if only the partial glossectomy had been done to just determine the lesion size. As it is now, NO additional treatment is required. We went back, yesterday, Tuesday, the 27th, for a 2 week follow up. He has a hematoma (small pooling of blood) at his incision site, which she drained. His scar is still completely numb, so he doesn't feel a thing when it's poked on. By last night, it was fuller again:( So, he went and had it drained/aspirated today. Less fluid, but still there. A concern with a large hematoma is infection/abscess formation. He started on antibiotics yesterday, and we are planning to have it evaluated again tomorrow. He also got some muscle relaxers that seem to completely knock him out, and ,in his words, make him cranky. Not sure how those are gonna work out.
Our friend/his co-worker, Steve, used to work as a physical therapy assistant for many years. He came over to pick Rob up for lunch and helped him with some strength and range-of-motion exercises. Rob is already moving his head/neck better.
Nothing about his case makes sense! Why Rob, at 37, would have this cancer. Why did he not need the skin graft or a tracheostomy? Why is he not still on a liquid diet? Why are the lymph nodes negative? God has a plan for Rob, and for me, too. Lots of people have commented about God's goodness, and his answering our prayers for healing. He is good, and he did answer our prayers. But, what about those whose prayers aren't answered with healing or a positive outcome? I'm not gonna lie. This is something I still struggle with. I may never understand it, but I'm going to share what I heard today. Sometimes God allows things in order to give us a witness, a "story" if you will. People respond to amazing, unbelievable, wild, scary, heroic stories. They just do, they're human. So, when we've lived through these experiences, we not only want to share, we HAVE to.
Throughout this whole process, I have been worried about Rob's suffering. I can't stand to see him in pain or sick, and since he's never sick, this was a really odd situation. I had so many thoughts. I imagined the best case and the worst case scenario, and everything in between. One thing I knew. If Rob "left", he would be in a better place. As a Christian, when this life ends, we have the hope of eternal life in heaven.
We have been amazed by the number of people who have reached out to us through this. I'm afraid I'll forget someone, but please know that we appreciate everything!
My brain is a little fried and overwhelmed. So, I'll let you go for now...............
You're both fierce! You're getting right through it, with as little help from the Man upstairs. :)
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