Humans Plan...

Papa was in ICU for six days, first of all because of the severity of his surgery (back in the 60's and 70's the mortality rate for a Whipple was 25%, today it is less than 4% when done in a major medical center) but secondly because of the meds he was on. He was not allowed to eat or drink anything for several days and he had to wait till he could take his cardiac meds orally to go to a surgical floor. It was torture to him to be unable to drink. When he feels sick he wants ice water and he was parched from the surgery, his medications, the oxygen. ICU sucks the moisture out of a person. The doctor did allow him a "few" ice chips and this was Papa's salvation.

As I mentioned before, Papa does not like to wait. It's a good thing men do not have babies because he would never have been able to wait nine months. So... the day he was out of surgery he was already asking when he could go home. Before the surgery his doctor told us to expect a minimum two week stay and that the average for a Whipple is twenty one days. This is because the surgery is so huge that there are usually complications of one kind or another, and the complications for surgery like this are usually life threatening: blood clots, peritonitis, wound infections, to name a few. He was very lucky though as there were no complications what so ever and he came home after only an eight day stay.

All he could talk about was going camping. Before surgery we had been planning to visit our son and his family in Suttons Bay, Michigan and we were unhappy that we had to forget about that. We had also had a family camping trip in the works since February, planned for July and he set that as a goal. He was going to feel well enough to go on that trip. He was determined to make that trip as he felt that it could be his last.

Every family event now is planned as though it might be his last. We have Maeva and Noelle's baptisms coming up, Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays to celebrate. Will he be here for them? We don't know but then, I may not be here for them either. Who know's? I could be fomenting a huge cardiac or neurological event as I type. The death of my first husband in a car accident 35 years ago taught me that nothing is sure. Have you ever seen the clever quotations that some church's put on their bulletin board's? We saw one recently that accurately describes how we feel... "Humans plan and God laughs." Every plan has a big "IF" attached to it. I always host Thanksgiving but now it's... IF papa is feeling well enough to have everyone over to our place. Papa wants to attend the baptism's in two weeks... IF he feels well enough to go to church.

In retrospect the camping trip was not a good idea.