Monday, June 22 A Long Day

Today began much as yesterday, with some pronounced abdominal pain when I tried to raise myself from a prone position to sitting on the bed. One of Dr. Farnell's wonderful assistants in the surgery, Dr. Renata Maricevich, greeted me at 6 a.m. with news that the catheter would probably be removed after Dr. Farnell's visit at 10:30, which it was. This was also Dr. Farnell's first viewing of the finished sutured scar, which had been completed after he had left the operating room on Friday. He seemed very please, even smiling (a rarity, it would seem.)

I was instructed to remain on clear liquids until I can pass some gas (too much info for some, but it is the way things go.) I tried eating some of the mixture that passes for chicken broth, but I just couldn't get myself to eat much more than a couple of tablespoons. I ate about half of a small container of raspberry ice and some raspberry juice. It was somewhat freeing not to be tied to the catheter, but I still have the wound drain and the nutrition IV line.

Later in the morning I had a visit from Dr. David Larson, a Luther grad and former member of Luther's board of regents. I had met him when I was a faculty rep to the board some years before. He is a good friend and neighbor of Dr. Farnell's and was interested in seeing "the scar", which had evidently gotten some notoriety from Dr. Farnell from his earier visit. Dr. Larson has as good natured and smiling a personality as one could wish for. He certainly is an admirer of Dr. Farnell's work and told me so.

Bill and Yvonne Kuhlman visited around noon, bringing an unusual and interesting book of quotations. On one side, with a white paper cover is the title The Optimist's Handbook: a companion to hope. Flip the book over and the other side, in black, is titled The Pessimist's Handbook: a companion to despair. Quotations from great thinkers, philosophers, writers, musicians, theologians, etc. are included in both sections. The two books are further subdivided into 57 categories such as "adventure", "baldness", "genious", "love", etc. It should prove an entertaining read.

Darla came by around 5:30 p.m. for a short visit. While she was here a young man, Hal Sundt, from Mayo's Episcopal Pastoral Sevices came in the room and asked if there was anything he could do regarding scheduling a chaplain visit, Eucharist, etc. After speaking with him about those things for me, I asked him to join in a prayer for Darla's son, Erik, who will be undergoing surgery tomorrow.

After Darla left I took my sixth walk of the day. Later, Dr. Maricevich came by to speak with me. She was still waiting for the pathology report, which didn't arrive until 9:30. It showed no signs of full-blown cancer, but the cyst was described as an Intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm, with high grade dysplasia. Apparantly, it was as close to being cancer, without being cancer, as is possilbe. In other words, Dr. Farnell's decision to remove it immiediately was life saving.