Thursday 29 April 2010

They think it's all over

First blog in a while, but I am sitting at in the hospital while my father has just been taken from surgery to recovery. At 8am this morning he had a Whipple procedure and 40% of his pancreas was removed, along with 30% of his stomach. The surgeons consider the surgery to have been a success and they believe that they have removed the whole tumour. We will have to wait for another week to get the pathology results from the lab, but it is all looking very good and my father is now expected to make a full recovery.

It will take a while for my father to recover (and he's going to be on nil by mouth for up to a week- nice) but it seems that he is out of the woods for the moment. We still need to wait for the pathology report, but there is good reason to be cheerful.

After all that, it seems a bit of a let down, really. I feel that we at least deserve a medal. Instead my father gets to live another day. Just like before the cancer. Of course people got faced with their own mortality and some of us reassessed our lives and life will never be exactly the same. But it feels too much the same for my comfort. Does defeated cancer really leave a lasting impression. Complacency and habit return very quickly.

But don't mind me. Selfish. And tired. Meh.