Cancer Operation 1
Jerk it Out & Slap it In
By the time I was flopped on the operating table June 29th, there were hundreds of people praying for me in 4 or 5 churches, plus friends, and friends of friends.
The surgeon had booked 7 hours for the surgery. However by this time the tumor had grown until it was larger than a baseball – about the size of a small grapefruit, is what he told me later.
The surgery took 13 hours! The reason for that was, as the surgeon told me, it took a lot more time than expected to get the tumor out. He removed it and most of the right side of my jaw. He took a strip of bone from my right leg, sculpted it and grafted it into my remaining jawbone.
From a technological and skill point of view, it was a pretty incredible operation. They had to use microscopic aids and tools to sew blood vessels smaller than a human hair together!
When the operation was finally over, Dr. Anderson phoned my daughter’s place and spoke to her. She said he sounded exhausted. I can believe that! But, he said everything had gone well.
Post-op
By the time my wife, daughter and husband arrived at the hospital, I was quite awake and communication with the nurse by writing on paper! I remember most of the details of their visit, which is strange because my wife does not remember my first few visits after her heart operation. Perhaps she was on higher levels of morphine.
I was in the hospital three weeks during which time my wife came every day to visit me. She doesn’t drive so, if she didn’t get a ride with someone, she took bus and skytrain – at least an hour and a half each way.
Throughout this first part of my journey, I tried to let God give me whatever I needed to get through it. I know that God was there suffering not only with me, but with those who love me. I think they suffered more than I, and God most of all. When His children (every human on this planet is alive through His power and love whether they know it or not) suffer, He suffers just as a loving parent suffers when their children are in pain.
It was the knowledge of God’s love and presence, even though I didn’t (and still don’t) understand everything about the whys, that strengthened me, and helped me to keep a positive attitude.
While I was in the hospital I had a lot of time to think. I wrote down some of the things I was thinking about, and share them in my e-book, Beating Cancer.
Healed?
The surgeon did a fantastic job! My face looked almost normal after the bandages came off. He is truly an artist. There were almost no scars at all.
Fort St. Michael in Senglea
It is too bad all that incredible effort went all for nothing.
It took me three weeks to get out of the hospital because I got a touch of pneumonia and then a severe infection in the wound.
In spite of all that, I believed I was healed. There was no doubt at all, and I praised God.
There was a little cloud on the horizon, however. They told me that two of the 120 lymph nodes removed from my neck had cancer cells in them. Not only that, they found that the cancer went right to the edge of the flesh that was removed. The surgeon always attempts to take more tissue than is cancerous in order to make sure he gets it all.
Unfortunately, in my case the cancer had gone further than they expected, and the biopsies showed it extended to the edge of what was removed. That means that it could have extended beyond.
I chose to believe that God had guided the surgeon and he did get it all. Maybe I should have asked God about it . . .
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