A Painful Finish

The chest surgery went very well. It took only about 2 hours, and it was about as minimally invasive as it could be. Still, there is A LOT of pain.

There was an incision made in my side in-between my ribs. This is where their cameras went as well as where the chest tube was placed. This tube is what they used to collapse my lung and then used it for drainage after the surgery. It caused quite a lot of pain.

Another incision was made directly below my right shoulder blade. This is where they went in to remove the mass. The mass was exactly where they thought it was and was 2cm x 4 cm in size.

I was in ICU for about 30 hours or so and then was moved to a regular room for another 24 hours or so. Surprisingly I was released from the hospital only two and half days after the surgery. There has been a lot of pain involved but I've been feeling well other than that.

The really good news came this week. I had a follow up appointment with the surgeon the week after surgery. They were pretty concerned about complications with the lung because of the fact that the operation involved collapsing the lung and cutting right by the lung wall.

The surgeon told us that the chest x-ray looked as if there wasn't anything done as far as a surgery. He went on to say that the pathology reports revealed that there was teratoma; however, there was absolutely NO other cancer cells.

They then asked me if I wanted them to take out the port in my chest. For those of you that don't know, the oncologist will not even suggest taking out a port once it's in until they are 100% sure they are through giving treatments. So, that was the great news.

I'm done!! Just like that...it's over! I'm still in pain and need to recover. But it's over! It still seems a bit surreal, but as my pastor told me from the beginning "as soon as it began it will be over".

Thank you so much to everyone for your prayers. Catherine and I could not have possibly gone through this without your prayers. Obviously, I still have quite alot of a recovery process to go through and for that you can continue to pray. My healing won't be completely experienced until I'm fully recovered.

It's truly like a race. The part of the race that hurts the most is the finish. And if you gave it your all then you're sore and tired for a while after the race is finished. But nevertheless, it's over. And you can celebrate your victory.

The only difference is that I've had victory the entire time. I've been going through this time FROM a place of victory instead of striving to achieve or work TOWARD victory. Our victory is in Him...in our hearts. The Heart of Victory.