My Bubby Tom

Four weeks ago, my sister-in-law, Karen, was diagnosed with lung cancer. Since, she had not had any symptoms, nor smoked a day in her life, we were all taken by surprise. The prognosis she was given was – in a word – bleak. She was told the tumor had probably been growing inside her anywhere from seven to fifteen years. The doctor told her before they did a biopsy that he was 99 percent certain it was malignant, and from the looks of it, the tumor was attached to the Aorta, meaning that nothing could be done for her. He gave them little hope.

Thank God for second opinions.

After having a biopsy and a series of tests to determine if the cancer had spread or was contained in the lung, and then consulting with a lung specialist at Ohio State’s Medical Center, Karen ended up back home – well, across the river in Ashland, Kentucky – to meet with a lung surgeon there. Tom told me that he was the only doctor who looked Karen in the eye and told her this was a "doable" surgery, and he explained in detail exactly how he would approach the situation, and that is the main reason they decided to go with him.

So, home I went this past weekend to visit with friends, but mainly I went home to be there for my brother. I spent yesterday with Tom, and Karen’s brother and three sisters and some family friends as we waited together while Karen underwent surgery to remove the diseased lung. The doctor had explained the procedure…he would remove the lymph nodes first and test them to see if they were malignant, then he would insert a camera and "nudge" the mass to see if it moved away from the Aorta. If it did, they would do the surgery. If not, well…we didn’t want to think about that.

We all sat around, telling family stories. In my family, a lot of stories are sports-related, so we had several of those to tell. A young man poked his head in the door at 3:50p.m. to tell us that they had started and that he would be back every two hours to give us an update. The doctor had already performed two other lung surgeries earlier in the day and a family member of one of the patients was in the waiting room with us…that surgery took almost four hours. So, when the same young man returned just shy of two hours later to tell us that they had finished and the doctor would be out to talk to us in a few minutes…well…no one said it out loud, but we all expected to be told the worse news possible...that he was unable to remove the cancer.

Now, Tom has been hard of hearing most of his life, so when the nurse came in and asked for two or three of us to meet with the doctor, one of Karen’s sisters and I tagged along to hear what the doctor had to say. Well, it turned out to be one of those "oh, ye of little faith moments” because the doctor came in and said the lymph nodes were clear, the mass had not been attached to the Aorta, and he had been able to do the surgery. The only thing was, he tried to take only the lower lobe, but the tumor was so large, he had to remove the whole lung. There was no blood loss, so they did not have to give her a blood transfusion, but since the mass was so huge, he said he would recommend chemo after she heals from the surgery.

What a relief! We all thanked the good doctor profusely, and I started out the door and down the hallway toward the waiting room. Then it hit me, and I turned back around to see my bubby walking toward me, so I grabbed him and kissed him on the cheek and hugged him. Now, my family is not the most demonstrative group, but we do love each other. When I started to pull away, Tom held on, and then I heard him sobbing on my shoulder. These were tears of joy, but still, my big ol' bear of a brother was crying like a baby on his baby sister’s shoulder. All those hours and days and weeks of worry and "not knowing" had turned into unimaginable relief. How do we survive such stressful, turbulent times in our lives?

So, at least for now…the prognosis is much brighter than we had originally been led to believe, but I have to tell you one more thing about my brother and sister-in-law before I go. They celebrated their thirty-seven year wedding anniversary today. Back in those long hours spent in the waiting room, Tom said that when they first learned about the cancer and were told that it was terminal, he told my sister-in-law that whatever she wanted to do, he would support her...that he would take her anywhere in the WORLD to get any treatment that might be available to her. That, folks, is true love. My bubby…I think I’ll keep him.