This is not a blog post I want to be writing. At all. And I'm simply doing it for you all. I've asked so many of you to pray and send positive thoughts. I cannot thank you enough for them. You do not know how much my family and I truly appreciate every prayer, thought, and good vibe you've sent this way. For that, I do owe you all an update.
Please understand and respect that we do not wish to divulge all of the details of yesterday. Some are hard to speak (or write) and we just feel it's something that the public world doesn't need to know at this time.
Grandpa's surgery and the outcome went differently than we had hoped. Not how we had wished. Not what we were confident of. The surgery itself went well. Grandpa is stable and doing really, really well. He didn't need a breathing tube or any additional blood. After six and a half hour surgery, and another two hours of waiting for him to get settled into ICU, we were able to visit him, two people at a time.
Grandpa looked so much better than I thought he would! They removed his entire lower jaw on the left side but they were not able to do any form of reconstruction. This will cause him many issues eating from here on out. The cancer had also reached his pallet (something we knew before surgery but I forgot to mention) so they removed that and replaced it with a piece of tissue from his chest. The surgeon also removed a lot of the lymph nodes that were infected as well.
Grandpa has a very rough road ahead of him. Again, there are a lot of details we are not sharing (and might not ever share, unless we personally know you). I just ask for you to continue to pray for Grandpa. At this point, and for the next year while he undergoes radiation and then chemo, we need the absolute strongest of prayers people have to offer. Please add him to your prayer chains, offer up Masses or services for him, keep him in your daily thoughts and prayers. My family truly believes in prayer and have seen the miracles it can provide. We prayed together as a family in pre-op with Grandpa before his surgery and we know God guided him through that like a champ. We prayed together as a family after talking with the surgeon following the surgery. And we will continue to pray every spare second we get. I know it's a lot to ask, but please keep him in your thoughts and prayers for quite some time.
Please keep my family in your thoughts as well, especially my Grandmother. We are all having a difficult time right now but are remaining positive. We need to keep our strength and positivity so we can help Grandpa fight and win his battle against cancer. There is hope...never lose hope.
Andy, Grandma Sally and Aunt Dodie, we know you've got connections with The Big Guy and wouldn't mind you helping out here ;)
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