Yesterday was a great day. Melisa was feeling so much better. She had a couple of appointments, so I took the morning off and hung out with her. The first appointment was the much anticipated visit to Dr. Shulman, the plastic surgeon. We got there right at 9 and were ushered in almost immediately. If you ever find yourself in the situation where you need to make an appointment with the doctor, I recommend choosing the first appointment of the day. Unless you're a weirdo and like waiting.
p.s. Don't tell everyone this secret. We can't ALL be first.
The nurse proceeded to remove the bandages from the surgery sites while Mel's skin threw a tantrum. Apparently her skin had a master plan: We must bond with the tape indefinitely! The nurse said, "No." She must have kids. After a bit of coaxing and threatening, the bandages were begrudgingly released and Dr. Shulman came in.
There hadn't been much drainage from the surgery sites for the last day, so she decided to remove the drainage tubes. (Mel has been singing "Free Bird" ever since.) Throughout the process I used my vast knowledge of Lamaze and took deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth and I still almost fainted. Weird, because it didn't even hurt me that much and I wasn't watching. (Just because my hands were covering my eyes doesn't make me a chicken.) Mel handled it way better than I did. I know. You're not surprised.
Melisa has been kind of pushing it for the last few days. She's been frustrated that she can't be more mobile and do more. I've been trying to get her to knock it off and chill, to no avail. So I asked Dr. Shulman to please tell her it was okay to sit around and do nothing. Relax. Read. Rest. Let people do for HER. I think it worked. Dr. S told her to quit doing stuff and take the time to heal. Two weeks from now we're going back to see her, and she may let Mel start doing light duty things. At that time they'll also start filling the tissue expanders. A week after that they'll remove the stitches. From there it's just filling the tissue expanders every couple of weeks until the cleavage is at the appropriate level of awesomeness. The doc said there's a mixture of cocoa butter and vitamin E that you need to rub on the expanding area to avoid stretch marks. Ok. If I have to. :)
Our next appointment was with Genetic Counseling at 11. We got there a bit early, but they were able to see us right away and proceeded to cram thirty seconds of info into fifteen minutes. Here's your family tree. The blah blah one gene looks great, but there's a variance on the blah blah two gene. Which means we don't know anything. Could be something, but could just as easily be nothing. No one else with cancer in Mel's family tree has had testing, so until they do there's no way to know if the variance on the blah blah two gene means anything. Blah blah blah. That's how I feel about that appointment.
That evening, Amy played Santa Claus. Again. She brought frozen pancakes we can just pop in the toaster, special fiber treats from Cathy and dinner from Rose. I'm going to be spoiled! Thank you so much for dinner, Rose, it was excellent. And thank you Amy for taking the time to come over.
Today Melisa had an appointment with the Oncologist. I wanted to go so badly because they have a killer selection of Tootsie Pops there. Unfortunately Naomi's swimming orientation was this morning as well, so I opted to show off my farmer's tan (yeah, baby) at the pool while Elizabeth (Mel's mom) took Mel to the doc. News from the Oncologist? Melisa is COMPLETELY cancer free! She has no greater risk of developing cancer again than anyone else. Melisa - 1, Cancer - 0.
Diane called this evening to say she was on the way over and she was bringing dinner. She lied. When she got here she had to make THREE trips to bring everything in! Not only did she bring dinner, she brought groceries and supplies as well. Apparently her husband, Louie (sorry if I'm butchering the spelling!), is the culinary genius and the one responsible for this evening's feast. Thank you both, it was delicious! I managed to share some of the Capri Sun with the kids, but couldn't bring myself to part with the cookies. They arrived just in time. One more day and I would have been going through withdrawals. Have you met Diane? She didn't stop there. She also hung out for a little while talking with Mel and painting her and Naomi's nails. Thank you again, Diane and Louie. You are so kind and we appreciate you.
Alright. You're done wading. Here's the story I wanted to tell you . . . Tonight I was putting Naomi to bed. She said prayers, snuggled up with Pinkie and Blankie and had one last swallow of water. As I was tucking her in, she gazed up at me with her big green eyes and whispered, "Hang with me, Daddy." "What?" I responded. I wasn't sure I'd heard her correctly. She wrapped her little arms around my arm and laid her head against my shoulder. "Hang with me, in my bed. I can move over." So I did. It was such a sweet moment. One I'll remember forever.
Thank you for that. I've been able to spend so much time with my family these last couple of weeks because of you. Not having to deal with much of the mundane, and just being able to focus on being a husband and father has been an incredible blessing. Thank you for taking care of us. And thank you for letting me hang with my family.
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