BECAUSE RUNNING CAN SAVE YOUR LIFE

The date for the surgery was set; July 8 at Memorial Sloan Kettering.  Telling our families was the second hardest part...hearing the diagnosis ourselves was the hardest part.  We still had a full week until the surgery and the 4th of July weekend was coming upon us quickly.  For Tom, it wasn't quick enough.

The day before July 4th I noticed Tom suddenly didn't look good.  He looked pale and sick.  We spent the July 4th holiday with my family and even they noticed how ill he looked.

The days seemed to move in slow motion, but finally July 8 was upon us. It was time for Tommy to get his kidney and tumor removed.  We arrived at MSK 3 hours early and parked in a garage up the street. The odd thing was that after months of Tom's tibia hurting him, it didn't hurt at all that day.

As we waited to be called into the pre-op area, we met a lovely couple from Brooklyn. The wife was having lung surgery to remove a tumor that had spread from her bones into her lungs. The reality of everything was setting in.  At 1:30 pm they called Tom into the pre-op area and allowed me to stay with him.

They hooked him up to his IV and prepared him for his surgery.  We even took a selfie together.  At 3:30 pm a nurse came in and asked if he was ready to head into the operating room.  Tom and I said goodbye and off he went.  I went downstairs and grabbed a quick bite to eat. I wasn't overly worried about Tom surviving the surgery because I had 100% confidence in him, Dr. Russo and the medical team.  Dr. Russo commented several times that Tommy's excellent physical condition, thanks to all of his running, would work to his advantage.

A nurse found me in the waiting room at about 5:30 pm and told me that the surgery officially began at 4:20 pm and that everything was going well.  By 7:00 pm, I received a phone call that the surgery was complete and that I was to meet with Dr. Russo on the 6th floor.

Dr. Russo came into the room and sat with me to discuss the procedure.  He said Tommy did very well through the surgery however he lost a lot of blood. He said the tumor was huge.  They removed the entire kidney with the tumor and didn't see any cancer in the surrounding organs.  It was pushing up against the diaphragm and spleen, so that made the surgery a bit more tricky.  If Tom recovered as well as expected, he would be able go home on Friday.

I was allowed to see him in the recovery area.  He was awake and talking and in a bit of pain. I was actually surprised at how alert he was.  I stayed with him as long as I could but eventually I had to get home to our kids.

The next morning (Thursday) I headed back to Sloan Kettering to see how Tom was doing.  When I got there, I was pleasantly surprised. He was up and walking laps of the 5th floor.  A physical therapist did a few laps with us and then asked him if he could walk up and down a few stairs.  Tom passed with flying colors!

The next day (Friday) Tommy texted me early in the morning and said he was being released.  I dropped our daughter off at camp and flew into the city as quickly as I could.  When I got to Tom's room, he was READY TO GO!  By noon that day, he was already home.

Tom's recovery continues to improve every single day.  In fact as I write this, I can say that today was a really good day for him.  He still has some soreness, but he continues to move as much as possible and his appetite is slowly returning.  Our next step in the journey is to meet with a Radiologist to discuss cyber-knife for the tibia.  Cyber-knife is essentially a strong targeted radiation.  We're hoping to get moving on that as quickly as possible and then in 10 days we meet with the Oncologist to discuss immunotherapy to treat the disease systemically.

We're learning to take life day by day at this point and to appreciate the little things that life has to offer. The journey has just begun but there are still a lot of unanswered questions.  Questions that may never have a clear answer.  But that's ok. I'm just happy for today.