Semi Colon!

Cliff had his colon surgery yesterday and it was a long day. This surgery actually took longer than his liver surgery, which was surprising.  My sweet sister, Pauline, was with me and helped me keep my mind off of things I was worried about.  Cliff was wheeled back to the operating room around noon and at 6 p.m. the surgeon came out to talk to me. The surgery went well but they did have to remove more colon than they anticipated. They also removed all of his lymph nodes in the area. As my dear friends, Ron and Chris Titus say, "Cliff is now a semi colon" and yes he is.  You truly have to keep a little humor in these journeys.  I wish I would have recorded some of the things Cliff was saying when they first wheeled him in his room.  He had us all laughing.

As of right now Cliff is doing much better this time around.  He is alert, has an appetite, slept like a rock last night and is in good spirits.  It is good to see him feeling good so soon after surgery.  If things continue to go well, we may be able to come home on Saturday.  I guess we will see.

The next steps....Cliff will start chemo in about 4 weeks.  How many more treatments will depend on if they find cancer in his lymph nodes.  We are thinking between three to seven.  Four to six weeks after chemo he will go in for his final surgery where they will reconnect his small intestines.  We are hoping by December we can be done with chemo, and surgeries.  Unfortunately,  Cliff will live in the "I have had cancer" world for the rest of his life.  Colonoscopies, PET-scans, oncologist visits.  Don't get me wrong, we will happily live this life if it means we can say "CANCER FREE"!  That is our hope.

It's weird to say this but cancer has been good to us.  It has taught us to love unconditionally, to laugh more freely, to accept help, to be more grateful for good neighbors, friends and family, to take time to smell the roses, to look for rainbows, to appreciate the good and the hard things in life, to know that our Heavenly Father knows us, loves us, and wants us to trust him, and so so much more.  We will forever be grateful for the things that we have learned through this experience.

Onward and upward we go.  Thank you all for standing behind us and cheering us on.  You will never know how much we appreciate the love and kindness that you show us each and every day and we love you back.

Before I end this blog post, Cliff and I want to wish our good friends Steve and Karin Libby good luck on Steve's last chemo treatment this Friday.  You never gave up.  You fought and won.  Congratulations!!!

Arvonne