Finally, a Date.

December 18 (In 2009 thankfully!)

We heard from James at Duke yesterday that things were coming together for a date, then got confirmation later (through an automated email from Duke Medicine). It is kind of a ways off (51 days but who's counting?) but we were beginning to understand that it might be a while. Knowing the day makes it a lot easier to wait on. So we are happy. Thankyou to all who fasted and prayed for us!

When something that is so new and unfamiliar like this comes along, I tend to have a lot of preconcived notions. One was that the seconds were ticking away and that there was no time to lose. In many cases this is undoubtedly true. But there seemed to be a number of variables what went into the scheduling. A few of those seem to be:

• The tumor is thought to be slow growing and likely benign which buys some time
• The tumor is in a tricky location which warrents having both Dr. Friedman and Dr. Fukushima present
• It was hard to find a day when they were both in town and available
• It sounds like it might be an all day procedure so they needed to find a full day to set aside.

Thankfully, it looks like they found it.

My last post regarding my eyes may have come across sounding worse than it is. Now that I've met with the retina specialist and had a good chat with him, I feel a lot better about the situation. When I had my herniated disk problem over the summer I made the comment, "Never irritate your Sciatic Nerve, it will make you pay". I can confirm that is still true. The pressure the disk was putting on the nerves in my leg was truly excruciating. And oh what joy when the pressure was relieved. But even after the pain was gone, still the nerve needed some time to calm back down. Dr. Denny today said that nerves don't like to feel pressured and when they are they get irritated and fight back (ok, that was a paraphrasing of what he said). When they are being irritated they do unpredictable things. With my Sciatic nerve, I remember feeling like my leg was an ungrounded high voltage wire. I could almost see the sparks shooting out of it. About 3 weeks after the surgery, the fireworks finally faded away and back to normal. My foot, which had been numb for months finally woke up and felt normal again. Apparently, the optic nerves are behaving the same way - they don't like the pressure that is being caused from the tumor. So they will have some erratic behavior until the pressure is gone. In the mean time, I guess I get to have some interesting visual entertainment while waiting. And again, it may be some time after the surgery before things calm down and get back to normal. But, at this point there is no risk of any permenant damage. Again, the fortunate case of catching this early was significant.

More good words from Dr. Denny (the Opthamologist) about Dr. Friedman and Dr. Fukushima. Apparently, Dr. Fukushima is world famous. Dr. Denny said he sat in on an operation similar to the one I will be having and that he is a genious, and also a very nice and interesting person to meet. I hope to meet him personally (while awake) some day. Apparently, all the tools that he (and others) use in his operations were designed by him.

There are certainly others who are dealing with challenges equal or greater than mine. My thoughts are with them and their families at this time.

I like the story of the 10 lepers, where Jesus healed 10 but only one returned to thank him. It could be easy to fault the nine for being ungrateful. But I wonder if they were so overwhelmed with being healed (since leprosy was basically a death sentence back then) that maybe their first thoughts were to run home to see their family and so on. But in the end, I would have wanted to be the one who thought to turn back and give thanks. So to avoid that, my thought is to give thanks before the fact as well as after the blessings come. I believe I will be "made whole" and that it will be a combination of skilled surgeons and staff, uplifting support from friends and family, and certainly blessings from the Lord. So I say "Thank You!" now and will hope to remember to say it again after more blessings come.