my youngest grandson asked to see my scar a couple of days ago… it brought back some memories…

George died March 5th… following that I had some fairly serious medical symptoms which ended up with a biopsy… on May 22nd I received a phone call at 4:20 from a gynecologist advising that I had uterine cancer… I was supposed to go into a board meeting at 4:30…

I didn’t have George to talk to… that is what I miss the most…

my colleagues quickly stepped in, organized someone else to take minutes of the meeting, and a couple took me home…

we had been waiting since September of 2011 for my ventral hernia repair surgery, but the process kept going very slowly… once I saw my doctor after George’s death and described recent symptoms he advised we could not proceed with the hernia surgery as I might also need a hysterectomy, and he didn’t want me to go through two separate surgeries…

after she told me I had cancer, the gynecologist advised that she was turning me over to CancerCare, and someone would give me a call… serendipitously a colleague mentioned my situation to one of our suppliers (which was very unusual) who contacted me the next day with her niece’s phone number… her niece was one of the gynecological surgeons at CancerCare… after numerous calls my surgery was set for July 18, 2012…

I made copious arrangements for the time of the surgery, arranging schedules for those who would sit with me in the hospital, and when I got home… of course without George to look after me, I had to find others to help me…

the surgery went well and I was released from the hospital just 3 days later, and had family and friends stay with me for a while before I could manage on my own… I was home for ten weeks because of the enormity of the surgery…

a number of weeks following the surgery I received a phone call to advise that there had been one small cancerous polyp but everything else was clear… it was a miracle that the gynecologist had biopsied the one spot that had cancer cells… the doctor advised that I was cancer free and would not need any follow-up procedures… I had thought I wasn’t worried about the results, but when I put the phone down after the call I burst into tears… another small miracle was that a friend arrived just moments after this news to take me to a quilting group where my friends acted as my sounding board…

my grandsons had different ways of dealing with my surgery – particularly after having lost their grandpa so recently… two of them wanted nothing to do with seeing the scar, but the youngest was quite enthralled with Grandma’s owie… every time he came to see me he would want to see how the owie was doing…

I believe that George saved my life… the symptoms I was having had been minor and I might have gone for years before getting this dealt with, but the stress of his death brought on symptoms that couldn’t be ignored…

not having him to talk to when things happen – little things, bad things, good things, whatever, that is what I miss… for 41 plus years I could pick up the phone or turn to him and he would be my sounding board…

I have new sounding boards for different things now… someone at work, or a friend, or my daughters, depending on the situation… it is a part of the new reality of my life…

once my grandson checked out the scar, he went off happily, although I think he was a bit disappointed that it was all gone…