My father is doing very well; they moved him out of CCU on Saturday to a private room. When they ordered the MRI for him on Friday afternoon, the doctors were basically trying to rule out the worst case scenario which would have been that it was cancer and they were checking to see if it had spread to any other organs or the brain. On Saturday night, my mother called me and said that they were going to do a biopsy today (Monday) to find out what they could. They were also awaiting the results of the MRI and some other blood tests they had done, but the doctor told my Mom that IF they had found anything indicating that it was cancer and it had spread, they would have notified her (the doctor) immediately. Although we kind of sighed a breath of relief, it wasn't until yesterday afternoon that the doctor came in with the official word that nothing else showed up on the MRI, meaning that whatever it is that is making up the mass has not spread. That of course was our biggest and worst fear of all. Instead, they are now putting off the biopsy until later in the week and will be working on dissolving the clots around the mass itself. She told my parents that there is a good chance that this is NOT cancer; that it could be an infection or any one of several things but the most important thing was that the MRI was clear. The lung doctor (my Dad calls him "Dr. Death" because of his..um..shall we say, "bedside manner?") is to come in today to decide what he wants to do next, but the cardiologist said that for right now they need to concentrate on making sure his heart is working well, and that there was no damage done to the heart. He will probably be in the hospital for at least another week on the blood thinning medication. After my sister called me yesterday to tell me the great news (she was crying for the first time since all of this had begun), she gave me the phone number to my Dad's hospital room and I was able to talk to him. I cannot tell you how much that phone conversation meant to me; to hear my Dad's voice sounding so strong and confident and upbeat. He was very relieved of course by the results of the test, and he said to me that God was giving him another chance and he wasn't going to mess this one up. Hearing him talk about his own fear of dying was heartwrenching. He was more concerned about how I was doing down here....and I told him that I had plenty of people who were praying for all of us and that I was fine. He told me that although this is not over yet, the doctor told him that this was the biggest hurdle he had to overcome because if it had spread, it was too late. She also told him that she had been praying for good results before she read the MRI and that God had answered her prayers also...I don't know who was more excited...the doctor or my family. ;-)
If I've learned one single thing out of this (besides not to smoke) it's that the power of prayer is awesome. There is no doubt in my mind that God was listening to all who prayed for our family and my father. I also learned that I don't have to run away from the pain or the fear....that as horrible as the pain was that I was going through, as long as I relied on God and kept the faith everything would be okay. That is not an easy thing to do, but I also knew that no matter what the outcome was I couldn't change anything about it so there was no point in my worrying over something I couldn't change, I just concentrated on praying very hard and very diligently that God would give me the strength to handle whatever it was this turned out to be, good OR bad, and to take care of my Dad and our family. He did, He answered all the prayers that were said for my father. I believe that God also made me a stronger person in the last 4 days, too. I have always heard it said that God will not give you anthing you can't handle, and although at times this weekend I doubted that, the plain truth is that the saying is true. We all made it through what was at times an almost unbearable pain..the kind that just knocks the wind out of you...but we also learned that no matter how many times we might have fell off the proverbial "horse", we just kept getting back up again.
Thank you all for your prayers and thoughts, God was listening.
Deej