I’ve been back to see my dad since his cancer surgery last month. I’m so happy and relieved to say his non-small cell lung cancer was determined to be Stage 1. Also, his surgeon was able to go in with a tiny camera, determine he didn’t need to crack Dad’s chest or remove the entire lower left lobe of the lung.
This has all been great news when I especially needed it. Dad has made a remarkable recovery!
He went from this:
to this in a month.
I wish I had a better picture so you could see how happy my father is, and how healthy he looks. The big, stinky kids are mine. The adorable, obscured children belong to my bro and sweet sister-in-law. I don’t think they’d like me putting their kids’ faces on the Internet.
My dad and step-mom live near a National Park and enjoyed hiking often before Dad got too sick. Little over a week after surgery, they were back out on the trails, if a little more slowly than before. I credit this to their excellent diet and daily exercise.
I’m so grateful for Dad’s doctors and nurses at University of Tennessee Hospital. I think they give excellent care there. We’ve spent enough time there to know.
It’s the same hospital where my brother died twenty years ago, but it has changed so much that it doesn’t bother me much to go there. I took my 18-year-old son (Batman in the above picture) with me to last month. I was able to point to the place where I was standing when I found out my brother had died, and it didn’t bother me at all. Time really does heal all wounds.
This second visit to see my father was so great. Eight out of his ten grandkids were there. We made sure to take the group photo. I love family pictures, but I so often forget to take them.
I wonder if someone will look at it in a hundred years and be curious about us and our stories the same way I do with our old family photos from the 19th century. It reminds me that I need to print out more pictures.
Oh, and since it’s Lent, I made a vegan shepherds pie instead of banana pudding. It was good, but not banana-pudding good.
Do you have any good news of your own lately?
Yay! Good news for sure! I love old family photos too, I wish my grandparents had written on the back of them more.
The best ones are the ones with writing on them! Those are treasures.
This is SUCH good news, really, really good news!!!!
It is! It’s like “ye-haw, eat a box of Thin Mints” good.
Thin Mints are for really good AND really bad times.
That’s a UT coughing pillow, isn’t it?
I know more about coughing pillows than I care to.
It is absolutely amazing to me that he was up walking a trail a week after surgery!
Lindsey was walking and I was toting his oxygen tank. On the street. NOT on a trail.
I love seeing your Dad.
Absolutely, that’s a UT coughing pillow! And one stoned daddy!
I think the difference between my dad and Lindsey was the chest-cracking. Dad has a small scar under his armpit.
When they thought he had a tumor in his heart two years ago, they did crack his chest. That took him much longer to recover. It’s just a more serious injury to the body overall.
This is such good news Anne! Your dad’s quick recovery is a testament to his good health (minus the blasted lung cancer!) I’m sure surgeons all wish for patient’s like your dad and they will offer his amazing recovery as a beacon of hope to others.
Thanks, Suzanne. Part of why he is in such good health is because he’s never smoked.
Lung cancer is horrible when anyone gets it, but it seems particularly unfair when a nonsmoker has it.
Hope your father continues to get well. I recently spent some time with my Dad and my stepsisters. I realized how he’s aged since the last time we saw each other (during my wedding in 2010). Made me a bit sad. But still happy because we got to spend family time too. We should always appreciate our parents, I believe… while we still have time… while they can still hear and feel it… 🙂