Day 219, Year 9: Mark’s Surgery Date Set
Date: Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Weather: Overcast and Misty All Day, Windy, High in the Low 50’s F
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, Massachusetts
As Mark’s new surgeon, Dr. Ferrone, promised, we were called early today with a date for his surgery. As of the first call the surgery was going to be on June 25th. Then a couple of hours later, Mark received another call and the surgery date was reset to next Thursday, June 5. The reason for the change was to accommodate the schedules of the doctors. Dr. Sylla, Mark’s original surgeon, wants to be in the operating room as an observer and cannot be there late in June, so there was some shuffling about and the new date was set. It is certainly going to be a crowded operating room with new surgeon, old surgeon, and radiation oncologist all in attendance. But this is fine with Mark and he is actually glad that it will be sooner rather than later. In his opinion, the less time you have to think about these things, the better. It is rather short notice for the folks at West Marine, but hopefully the influx of summer help will be able to cover for Mark. And since we were totally unprepared to find out that the decision is to do highly invasive “open” surgery rather than less invasive laparoscopic surgery, we are still trying to figure out the how to deal with that. It’s hopeless trying to talk to the doctors about when it will be safe for Mark to return to Windbird. They have no idea what it means when we say we live on a mooring. They think we are talking about a dock. And unless they have tried to climb aboard a sailboat on a mooring from a dinghy in rough water, they have absolutely no way to give us guidance. We’ll just have to use our best judgment and figure this one out ourselves.
Heather and Jed are being extremely flexible in figuring out how to juggle their schedules to cover daycare in the absence of Oma. I will definitely stay at the hospital all day on the day of the surgery and then plan to be in Boston most of the next four days. Since two of those days are over the weekend, that helps a bit. But by Tuesday, June 10th, hopefully I will be back to take care of Ollie.
I just got a good laugh. As I am sitting here writing my log, Mark is sitting across from me on his computer filling out his Mass General Medical Passport. That’s a fancy way of saying general medical history. He just blurted out, “Now that’s a stupid way to ask that question.” When I asked him what the question was, he replied, “Do you have trouble remembering things?” The answer has to be YES or NO. Well, all of us have trouble remembering some things, so I assume everyone has to respond with a YES. They forgot to ask if you have selective memory. And I loved the next question. “Which of the following best describes your living arrangement?
Homeless
Assisted Living Facility
Nursing Home
Group Home
Unstable Housing
Disabled Housing
Independent Housing
Foster Home
Rooming House
Rehab Facility
Prison
Other”
Now how does Mark answer that one? I say ‘unstable housing’; he prefers ‘other’. Whichever, we are definitely boat people. And right now we are cold boat people. The high temp today was about 54 degrees F and there was not one smidgeon of sunshine to warm things up. So the temperature in Windbird when we got home tonight was not much higher than the temp outside. Darn cold. The weather forecast shows sunshine and warmer weather for tomorrow and Friday. That will be a welcome relief.
