Done with the surgery and most of the worrying

My youngest brother had surgery to remove a large (enough) tumor growing on his right lung. As a matter of fact, the surgeon decided the best course of action would be to remove the entire lower right lobe, along with several lymph glands - to be on the safe side. They described it as "cancer surgery", due to the radical nature, and they are performing biopsies on the tumor to determine the type. It will also determine whether or not (and what sort of) further treatment might be called for.

The wait on the biopsy results is expected to be two weeks or more, so Andy and mom are on pins and needles over that. Although, for the time being, the roughest part is over. He may not be breathing very comfortably right now (however, he IS breathing)...but at least mom is not holding her breath, as she has been for weeks, now.

It was a long day, beginning with the car ride to Ann Arbor at 5am. The Veteran's Hospital there was not an easy target, and mom wasn't the best person to be driving, but it was her car, so I bit my lip a lot when she took her own route here and there. Once off the expressway and actually in A2 proper, I urged her to stop so I could get directions from a "towny." The local Farmer's Market had an angel in the guises of a grumpy old manager, who told an office girl to print me a map "on the gizmo"...which she did. God bless them! From there, it was a quick drive to our destination.

If mom had had her way, we would still be driving in circles, tracing and re-tracing miles of road, looking for exits that weren't where we were going to find them. I knew a lot of this was due just simply to the anxiety and motherly worry over her child and the upcoming surgery. I would have been at my wits' ends, too.

Once, we were less than a mile from the hospital, and she refused to give up on turning around to follow her instinct rather than her nose (AND the directions), because the corner street sign to her was quite clear about what road we were crossing and not actually on.

Oh, I know - this is hard to follow. You had to be there for any of this to make any sense.

Suffice to say, she wasn't any too happy about letting me navigate and get us to the hospital.

Andy's directions were in her head, and not on paper...and that was where the trouble began (as usual).

We arrived and found the correct floor, and Andy's friend, Toni - another nurse in the kid's life, who walked mom through all that she knew, and let us know we had gotten there well before he was to go into surgery. At the time we arrived, he was in pre-op prep, and was complaining about being hungry, wanting a smoke, and needing a beer. Pretty darned typical.

When we were told to go back to see him, mom was biting a shaky lip and trying to corner the surgeon, whom she referred to as a "smart ass" from that point on. He kept dodging answering her questions point blank, and she kept nailing him to the wall, the floor and any other stationery surface she could find. It wasn't long before they wheeled the kid away, and we were left to wander back to the waiting room.

And wait we did.

Long story short... (shut up, Aaron, I know it's too late for that already)

From 7:45 am to about quarter of three that afternoon, we pounced on the phone in the waiting room every time it rang, only to hear some other family's name to page. It was heartbreaking. Surely, we thought, after 4 hours, some word would come to us...but it wasn't for almost 2 hours past Andy coming out of surgery that we were finally the name mentioned from the other end of the phone.

Oh, were there going to be a lot more questions for that chicken-sh*t doctor. Apparently, he was supposed to come out and speak with us after the surgery to let us know what and how, but he never did. The staff in post-op were surprised to hear no one had informed us of anything, and we were told that they were quite busy around 1pm, and that was how it was that nobody let us know he was in recovery all of that time.

BS! I say. Truckloads of BS!

Mom and Toni fawned over him, and I exited to the waiting area to catch my breath before calling scores of people to spread the word that the surgery was over, and Andy was awake.

We camped out in the waiting area for several more hours, until Andy was wheeled to his room in the intensive care area - where he would spend the next couple of days - and all of his belongings and clothes were stowed. Mom made certain he was going to get all of the "necessaries," and that questions got answers before leaving, and of course, Toni was there for a while after we left.

12 hours after arriving, we were on the road for home.

It rained the entire day (in more ways than one). Helluva way to kick off the month of Dismember.

Thank you for the thoughts and prayers. I will keep you updated.