Post-op blog post...

I like an illustration with a bit of a story behind it. I was given a card by a good friend last week that has two pictures of the “Tower of Refuge” in Douglas Bay on the Isle of Man. I did two 6 month spells on the Isle of Man in my merchant navy days, and the room where I stayed for most of that time looked straight out onto the tower perched on Conister Rock. It was built in 1832 by Sir William Hillary, who also founded the Royal National Lifeboat Institute. After several ships were wrecked on the reef, the intention was to provide somewhere safe for ship-wrecked sailors to shelter in, until help could arrive.

The card I was given had a picture of the tower in calm seas and nice sunshine on one side, and a picture of the same tower in the middle of a wild storm on the other. Inside the card is a copy of Psalm 46, “God is our ‘Tower of Refuge’ and strength, a very present help in trouble”. I was told to put the card around which ever way worked best for me each day, but to remember that no matter what is happening all around, the “Tower of Refuge” is the same.

The Tower of Refuge on a nice calm day

...and with the waves rolling in.

This weekend has seen the card spin round quite a bit between storms and sunshine.

My surgery went well (as far as I can tell), although it was much more involved than had been anticipated. The cancer removal part of the operation was always going to be intense with quite a bit of skin around the lesion being removed along with the cartilage below it, before everything was to be closed up with a graft taken from behind my other ear. That part of my ear is still all hidden under some stitched-on compression wadding stuff, so it will be another week or so before I see what the Mark II version of my ear looks like.

We had hoped that the sentinel lymph node biopsy would be a relatively small part of the operation, but that depended on where the sentinal node was. It was a 50/50 chance of whether the lymph fluid would drain to nodes in front of my ear, or behind my ear, with aft being preferable because of all the other glands and nerves in my cheek that might interfere with the lymph nodes there. Unfortunately the dye they injected showed that the lymph drained both ways, and they had to remove 2 nodes from in front of my ear and one from behind. I think that is why I went down to the theatre at 1:30, and didn’t wake up again until after 8pm! Needless to say I have a pretty impressive scar that runs down the front of my ear, under the lobe, back up the back side and down again,in a sort of sine wave shape. 

There are so many emotions flipping the Tower of Refuge pictures round just now. The surgeon seemed positive that all was well with the procedure. He felt the lymph nodes he removed looked healthy. He felt the wide area excision should have removed all of the cancer cells from my ear. But melanoma is the scary version of skin cancer. It is the most likely to spread and has a very real potential to be life threatening, so completely relaxing is not easy while we are still waiting for biopsy results on the 3 nodes he removed. 

I have to say that the swelling and wounds that I have just now look far worse than they feel, and I don’t feel the need to be continually eating pain killers, but having had quite in depth surgery on both sides of my head, my face is feeling a bit tender to say the least.  Getting a good night’s sleep is not the easiest thing in the world to do when you can't lie on either side. Everything feels tight, and swollen and the thought of pulling all those stitches gives me the heebie-jeebies! I have lots of little itchy bits that I can’t quite reach, and I am so looking forward to having all the stitches and dressings away and being closer to normality again.

It’s also difficult as a family being separated just now as well. The kids know I have been getting an operation, but they don’t really understand everything that is going on, and all the possible implications, so that just makes it so much harder talking to teary-eyed kids from the other side of the world. Heather has been busy with her new job, which undoubtedly has helped by keeping her mind off things and giving her something to focus on, but it all takes it’s toll, and she is going through a lot, whilst being a single parent for the short term. I am being well looked after by friends and family, and am making the most of being able to spend some time with my family, especially my brother, who I don’t get to see enough of. All that said, I am still living out of a suitcase and would much rather be in my own home, being part of everyday life with my wife and kids.

It is a great comfort to know that God is our refuge and strength, but equally we really value your prayers and encouragements as the weather changes all around us, almost on a minute by minute basis.