The surgery Thursday got started a little late and lasted a little longer than was scheduled, but everything went really well for Carrie-Anne and she’s doing as good as can be expected today. We were released from M.D.Anderson at about 10:30 yesterday morning and, after a stop at Walgreens, arrived here at our temporary home at 8181 Med Center, directly across the street from NRG Stadium where Texas Tech blew out Ole Miss a couple nights ago and the Houston Texans lose every week.

Carrie-Anne is extremely sore all over, moving very slowly, and feels like she’s in constant heatstroke. But she is cancer-free – they got every bit of it and a couple of lymph nodes for good measure. Praise God for his faithfulness to my beautiful wife! And thank the Lord for our cancer surgeon, Dr. Refinetti, and our plastic surgeon, Dr. Hassid, and all the wonderful nurses and caregivers at M.D.Anderson. Everything looks like it’s supposed to look today and seems to be working correctly. I think Carrie-Anne’s greatest concern is that I’m doing all the cooking for both of us over these two weeks in Houston.

And the math.

We weren’t really prepared for all the math. C-A is taking four prescriptions for pain and antibiotics at three different times of the day at least twice each during the day, she has four drains that must be emptied and measured and totaled and logged twice a day, and the thermometer they sent home with us is a Celsius-only instrument that must be converted to Fahrenheit. Keeping up  with all this is stretching our limited math capabilities to the breaking point. C-A is also doing exercises three times per day, inhaling into a weird little plastic instrument that measures her lung capacity every hour, and we’re doing laps around  the apartment courtyard every two to three hours to keep the blood  flowing and the stir-crazy at bay. She is a determined patient and I’m doing the best I can to keep up with her.

We are both so thankful for every phone call, text, and card from our dearest friends and family in Midland, Amarillo, Fort Worth, and Dallas  – friends who go back with us over 30-years to Marble Falls to the brand new friends we’ve made in the last year or so at GCR Church. Your love and concern and great care for us is overwhelming and means the world. It’s humbling. Encouraging. We are so  grateful.

We have a follow-up here with the cancer surgeon on Wednesday and the plastics surgeon on Friday. Our plan is to come home on the 11th, but we won’t know if that’s going to happen or not until these two follow-ups. We are asking the Lord to speed up Carrie-Anne’s recovery so we can be home that Wednesday night, when our middle daughter Valerie is scheduled to fly to Midland to help out for a few days.

In the meantime, we’re settling in today for the two college football playoff games – Go Frogs! – and probably a Happy New Year that will come long before midnight.

Peace,

Allan

My beautiful wife of 33 years, Carrie-Anne, and I are in Houston today for cancer surgery and two weeks of follow-up and recovery. Carrie-Anne was diagnosed with a stage-zero, non-invasive, grade three carcinoma in her right breast on October 28 and tomorrow’s surgery has been scheduled for about a month now. And the words that keep coming to mind when we’re asked how we’re doing are confident and grateful.

They found the cancer super early – C-A is diligent about such matters. We’re treating it aggressively, getting rid of any possibility of this thing ever returning. M. D. Anderson is by far the best place in Texas for cancer surgery and treatment and we’re in – the surgeons and doctors have been so kind and helpful and reassuring. Carrie-Anne is surrounded by two or three really tight circles of friends in Midland who are supporting her and caring for her – we can’t imagine any other place or any other people we’d rather be with right now than our church family at GCR. And our Lord has promised to never leave us. We’re confident. And grateful.

Obviously, this is not a journey anyone chooses for herself. We never would have picked this on our own. But our Father has decided this is good – at the very least, he has guaranteed us that he will use this for good – so Carrie-Anne and I are going into this with two overriding mindsets.

One, we’re going to walk through this together faithfully. How our God gets Carrie-Anne through this and how  we respond and behave during this crisis will be a testimony to his goodness. We want to bring him glory through this thing. We want to pay attention to how he’s at work in our own lives, we want to hear what he’s saying to us, we want to see what he needs to show us, we want our antenna up and our radar on. We’re committed to our behavior witnessing to others about our God’s faithfulness and transforming us more into his glorious image.

Two, we want to be a blessing to others. We’re going to run into people at M.D. Anderson, in this medical apartment complex, and throughout this city we never would have met otherwise. Our Lord is putting us right in front of brand new people and we want to show them his love and grace. We want to be bearers of God’s glory to everybody we talk to in Houston – the greeters at M.D.Anderson and the Bellaire Wal-Mart, the Texas Tech and Ole Miss fans at Papasito’s and the plastic surgeon’s P.A. in Sugarland, the guy making my Philly Cheesesteak Sandwich at the hospital cafeteria, and the lady taking our money at the parking garage. We are going to reflect the joy and the peace we have from God in Christ Jesus to everybody who sees us.

Thank you so much for the kindness and generosity you are showing to Carrie-Anne and me. The surgery is  scheduled for 9:00 tomorrow morning and should last about four hours. She’ll be released  on Friday and we’ll be here in this furnished apartment graciously provided by the Kingwood Church of Christ until probably Wednesday January 11.

I’ll try to post updates in this space often. Probably not tomorrow. The next update will come after we are released from the hospital late Friday. And it’ll be good news. We are confident in our Lord. And very grateful for you.

Peace,

Allan