Father's Day

We did a little conference call using the speaker phone this morning so the kids could wish Michael a happy Father's Day. Later today I think I'm going to venture to the hospital with the twins. I think they can handle it. Joey will be upset at not going, I'm sure, but I really think that seeing Dad in that environment and in that condition would just end up upsetting him and stressing him out.

I forgot my whole point in mentioning his oncologist's visit yesterday: he had Michael's pathology report from the surgery. The tumor had shrunk to about a quarter of its original size thanks to the pre-operative chemo and radiation, and out of 17 lymph nodes removed, only one was affected by cancer. So very, very good news.

Michael's present condition is a little ambiguous, at least to me. For all intents and purposes, he no longer has cancer; all of the cancer was removed via surgery as far as they could see. And yet, he still has to undergo more treatment for cancer - a lot more. The way Dr. A, the oncologist, explained it was like this: a thousand cells fit on the head of a pin, and without microscopic vision, the surgeon can only remove the cancer he's able to see. There is no way to know which people undergo this surgery and, in fact, are truly cancer-free as a result, and which people might still have a few cancer cells floating around, already multiplying. So the post-operative chemo is like an insurance policy. It may, in fact, be unnecessary, but there's just no way to know, so they do it. Better safe than sorry.