Surgical Staples Out This Morning - Facets of Gratitude.

Apart from some serious back problems as the result of an accident many years ago, I have been blessed with good health. One of the strangest aspects of the cancer diagnosis, was the fact that I'd had no symptoms, and believed myself to be in the best possible health except for my back. It was decidedly strange to find out I had a cancerous tumour growing inside me. But I had much to be grateful for - a screening test had caught the tumour at a very early stage, and it appeared not to have metastasized, according to the staging tests available.

I'd taken my favourite Al-Anon daily reader, "Courage to Change" into the hospital with me,  and on the second day after surgery, I lay there and read every one of the 13 pages under the topic of "gratitude", because I was having a hard time feeling any. I was sick after surgery, with my stomach producing bile overtime, not having had any food for about 3 days by then, and the food offered as a fluid diet was, not to exaggerate, disgusting. I do not understand how hospital food can be so atrocious, but had it not been for Robert bringing me yoghurt and real chamomile tea, I'd have been subsisting on the cup of food replacement which was on each meal tray, as it was the most appetising thing available. How any dietician could consider instant pudding, sickeningly sweet and lumpy, to be food for a person who has just survived major surgery, is utterly beyond me.

The food, however, was my only complaint. The nurses were kind, funny, caring, and knowledgeable, the surgeon worked his magic, and the entire thing was covered by my medical plan.

My 26 surgical staples were removed this morning at my GP's office in a matter of ten or so minutes, then we came home, and I was taken out for lunch by a good friend who'd driven down to the city.
Examining my scar (still with the staples) the other day, I was idly musing that were it horizontal rather than vertical, I'd have a good start on the front grille of a '54 Buick.

Today, I'm feeling grateful. I had lots of program friends come to visit in the hospital while I was there, and coming home to my beloved Robert was a gift indeed. Now I have to await the pathology report to find out if the lymph nodes were clean, or if further treatment is recommended. Either way, life is good, the sun is beaming and it's a lovely mild day in December. Bless you all.