Notes on the 11th surgery (thanksgiving)

Surgery 11 was more predictable than this year's previous three procedures.  The main surprise was that they asked us to be there early in the morning.  (Usually the early appointments are reserved for those that are having major operations that last several hours.)

We needed to be in at 7:30, so we spent an extra night at in the South Lake Union neighborhood at SCCA house (Awwwwww.  Too bad!)  Serious Pie and a quick trip to the most urbane Goodwill and it felt like we were on vacation.

The next morning came very quickly and even though prep took 2 1/2 hours, Anne-Marie was off to the OR what seemed like far to early in the day.  The procedure was performed in a better-than-textbook 70 minutes and Dr. Colohan came in to talk to me.

She told me that all went well and that Anne-Marie was doing fine.  She would be out of the recovery room in an hour.  She told me that next surgery would be the last one.  THE LAST ONE!

Anne-Marie is almost completely back up to speed after two and a half weeks, an easier recovery than the surprising struggle we had in July.

Anne-Marie has had six surgeries this time around inside 24 months, with an extra hospitalization thrown in there for fun.  Four of those surgeries have been this year: a personal record.  In the middle of the four we moved 120 miles.  And by the time we hit next spring, we'll be celebrating the entire chemo-->invasive cancer-->radiation-->reconstruction-->recovery process.  We're almost back to where we were in 2012!  This is great news.

At the same time we're going to have to learn how to go on after this.  We'll have to figure out if we want to leave our partnership with SCCA and the U of W and connect with a team of doctors here.  We'll need to figure out how to build Anne-Marie's strength back up.  We'll get to figure out what to do with all the extra vacation time I'll accrue.

We'll figure out how nine years ago life didn't stop, it just changed a lot.  Thank God for the path ahead.