Home again!

It’s really nice to have Randy back, alive and well. (And kicking!) 😂 It’s hard to believe the difference between surgeries. This one was all robotic. In a brand new robotic operating room. He said it was amazing! Since the tumor and lymph nodes were small, they didn’t need to make any large incisions. The previous surgery was robotic and old fashioned and because the tumor took up the whole left side of his abdomen, they needed a 6” incision to remove it. So this time, they were able to use 4 of the previous “holes” and one new one to remove the tumor. Much less invasive, less cutting. His pain is a fraction of last time. He is walking on his own, (no walker) talking, joking, eating, dressing himself, even tackled the stairs twice without permission. 🙄🤦🏼‍♀️ I am going to have to tie him down!!! Lol. He is still under the same restrictions as his last surgery. 6 weeks of rest, no lifting over 5 pounds. A gallon of milk is 7 pounds, for reference. He’s going to go crazy. And drive me crazy. 🤪 All the veins and blood vessels that had to be cut, are clamped shut with metal clips. Lifting or putting any pressure more than 5 lbs can cause them to burst off and he will have serious internal bleeding. Really serious. It’s hard to think about that when you’ve been doing nothing for a couple weeks and feel fine. But it still takes your body awhile to heal from all that surgery inside. His diaphragm is also having occasional spasms, causing giant hiccups. Probably because they cut part of it out for testing. Definitely painful and he’s very thankful that they aren’t constant and he doesn’t have a big incision this time! It was so sad to drop him off on Monday. It definitely hits the top 10 of saddest sites, to watch your spouse walk slowly down the sidewalk, into the hospital, alone, for a life threatening surgery. All the while, we wonder if he will come back out. It’s incredibly stressful and heartbreaking. When we got home today, I was suddenly exhausted through and through. Like all of it just caught up with me at once. The weight of it all. It was such a relief to be home. To have this behind us for awhile. Now we can move forward for a few more months in ignorant bliss. I have been working my fingers to the bone, building a new bedroom so we can have a guest room again. (Family is visiting a lot more frequently these days!) There will be a changing around of rooms to accomplish this, but it will be worth it in the end. The new room is turning out very nice! It has it’s own stairway, very steep. The stairway required the most work. The room was just used for storage and had no windows. The stairs were treacherous, so we didn’t really use it. Randy put a new window in, no small feat on the second story. He also did quite a bit to fix up the stairway. And he spackled the whole room. I’ve been doing the finish work. Sanding, caulking, painting, trimming the stairway. I also built a closet over the stairway to make better use of the space. That whole side of the room was treacherous to work on as we made makeshift platforms to cover the stairwell. I’ve been putting in 14 hour days to fill my week. Still a couple more days to go. My youngest daughter will be taking the new room and is very excited about it! We are shifting our room to her old one because she has a beautiful bay window in her room. Plus it’s huge. Lol. And has a huge closet. Our room will be the guest room. Both of those rooms are in good shape as they have been fixed up previously. I will just put some new paint up to match the change in decor. I love redecorating and rearranging! 😂 I do it all the time. It probably drives everyone insane, but I get bored with the rooms always being the same. 😂

So that sums things up for the week so far. It’s been a weird, stressful, busy, and happy week all in the span of 4 days. It’s nice to have Randy sitting in the living room again. The kitties are happy to have him back too! 💜