God's Intervention

Hello All:

I'm sure many of you are wondering what the heck is going on. I was supposed to be in the hospital now recovering from surgery. Well, if you don't believe in God having the almighty power to step in and change things when necessary then I don't know what kind of proof you will need. I, for one, Annette for two, and my daughters for three and four believe He made his move this past Monday when dealing with little ole me.

My two daughters, Jackie and Robin, were here for the surgery. They, Annette and I, went up to Durham Sunday afternoon, checked into a hotel and were ready for the 5 hour surgery Monday am. I checked into Duke at 7:30 am for prepping for the 9:30 surgery. Everything was going as planned . All the IVs were connected, along with other preparations, (even had an epidural in my back for pain,) had markings on my body where they were going to cut, and the gas doctors had done their thing. I was out and ready for surgery in the operating room.

My surgeon, God bless him, had to do one more endoscopy before he began to make the incisions. Well, when doing so he found more "small active cancer tumors" in the upper end of my esophagus. This was the area where he had planned to reattach the stomach after he had also taken a portion of that. Had he gone ahead and cut he would not have had any place to reattach it that was healthy, and who knows what would have happened next. The surgeon used the term "it could have been disastrous" had they continued. He called off the surgery and now we are going to drop back and look for a new course of action that will likely include more chemo treatments but whether radiation is also called for isn't clear right now. We have to return next Thursday to find out the new strategy they will plan for me.

I was held overnight in the hospital as I had nausea from the anesthetic, and wasn't able to urinate. They had to install a catheter which was also a lot of fun. But, bottom line is we are back home now, I am still fully intact and we are waiting to find out what happens next.

Back to God for a minute. I am sure He stepped in at the last minute to stop this surgery as it was the wrong thing to do. This may have been as a result of the many prayers I was receiving from many of you and others as well. The fact that this is also a "teaching hospital" may also benefit others in the future. I am only assuming there were interns present that may have learned from this whole episode and as a result maybe they will remember it in the future and it may result in someone else being saved - who knows. I just know that God stepped up at the last minute and made a great save. Thank you everyone for your prayers.

Some of you may be wondering why they didn't see these cancer cells before, seeing how I had 3 endoscopies before this, (one as recently as 3 weeks ago,) and that remains a mystery. The cells may have been hidden behind something else, or were just too small, or who knows. For whatever reason they weren't noted earlier. I'm just glad he found them when he did. We don't see this as a setback but are thankful that we have the team we do to help us fight this thing. I will let you know more as we know more. Till then, please keep the prayers coming - they helped before and will again next time.

Yours
Drew