The Three-Fisted Wait

My office has been closed most of this week. This post explains why.

The post is a first — unique in the history of my blogging experience — but that’s only fair, since it concerns something the doctors tell us is unique in the history of their medical and surgical experience.

Don’t expect eloquence, or anything deep, in this post. Words all-but-fail me.

Carole — she who has sometimes been referred to as my “work wife” — turned down a new path in her life Wednesday when she underwent a more than twelve-hour-long surgery to remove, among other things, a tumor the surgeon described as being the size of three fists.

As I write this Friday evening, we are expecting Carole, who went back for the second phase of surgery at least thirteen hours ago, to be wheeled out of the operating room at any moment, to stop for just a moment in front of us before being wheeled on into the Intensive Care Unit.

I have never blogged about anything non-legal, or not pertaining to my practice, on this blog before. But Carole is special. And, besides, since she has had a hand in helping keep my practice together for awhile, blogging about her is still “blogging about my practice.”

We shut down the office this week so that we could be here, at Stanford Hospital, to stand vigil with Carole’s husband, Bob. Both Bob and Carole have an amazing amount of strength. Bob would say, “No, just say ‘Carole,'” but watching, I see that Bob, too, has more strength than I think I could have in the same circumstance.

Nevertheless, we did not want Bob to have to sit, alone, in the waiting area.

For obvious reasons, I’m not going to go into details about anything pertaining to Carole’s private health information. Anyone wishing to know more should go to someone who has more authority to speak of such things. Suffice it to say that things have gone better than we expected. The surgeons — and there have been many, from numerous specialty areas — have done a fantastic job. We are elated (relatively speaking).

Carole, after all, will have quite a bit of recovery and rehabilitation ahead of her.

We plan to be there, as much as we can, with her. And with Bob.