hitched 09.06.08

I don’t want to leave the story incomplete so here’s the next chapter in the book of Morley and the Mega Tumor:

Six months after the successful surgery at Mayo, it was time for Morley to have another colonoscopy to make sure things were still going well, particularly since there was some question that the spot that grew the tumor might sprout a new one.  I wrote an extensive update in our “daily  blog” (see link below) but the bottom line is this: six months later all is well.  There were indeed more polyps that had cropped up in the area where the tumor used to be, but they were removed for biopsy and were benign.  You can read all about it on our blog–look for entries under the “colonoscopy” category.  (www.susanmohr.blogspot.com)
 

Oh, by the way…a little announcement is in order:

We’ve been together for a long time and shared many, many good times and a few not so good ones (all of which involve the tumor, by the way),  but after sailing through this tumor caper we realized how truly great and solid our relationship is–plus we figure we’ve already got the “bad times” under our belt–so we’re getting married on September 6th, 2008. 

And you thought we’d never do it, did you? 

That’s okay, we’re still a little surprised ourselves.

After Morley and I returned from the Mayo Clinic we wanted to thank the people there for helping us, and figured that an email to Dr. Devine would be the least intrusive way to express our gratitude.  Little did we know that we’d get one last lesson in the attitude of service and humility that makes the Mayo Clinic such a special healing place: 

From: Morley Spencer
Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2007 1:18 PM
To: Devine, Richard M., M.D.
Subject: My Recent Procedure
Dear Dr. Devine:

Last week you and your staff performed a trans-anal procedure to remove my colorectal tumor. I want to say that you and your staff treated me with the utmost dignity and respect, professionalism and kindness. Your procedure saved me from a painful and, as it has turned out, unnecessary major operation to remove this tumor by resection which is what I was clearly facing prior to visiting The Mayo Clinic. Not only that, I had also been promised the ‘near certainty’ of a permanent colostomy by the surgeon here in Atlanta as a result of that surgery.

Visiting The Mayo Clinic has been a truly awe-inspiring and spiritual experience for me and Susan and we will never, for as long as we live, forget the kindness, the hopeful optimism, and the unbelievably high standard of care that we received during our visit. 

From the bottom of our hearts, we want to thank you and The Mayo Clinic for your incredible work. May God bless you all.

-Morley Spencer

From: Devine, Richard M., M.D.
Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2007 2:35 PM
To: Morley Spencer
Subject: RE: My Recent Procedure

Dear Mr. Spencer,

My days can often be long and frustrating and sometimes demoralizing, it is letters like yours that make it all worthwhile.  Thank you for taking the time to write.

-Rick Devine

He works a miracle for Morley, then thanks us for giving him encouragement!  How can you not be impressed with a doctor who has an attitude like that?  All we could say was “wow”. 

As for Morley’s recovery since we’ve been home, he’s doing great.  His stamina still has a way to go before it is back to its normal level, but he’s pretty much working full days again and has resumed most of his old routine.  And it’s a big understatement when I say we are definitely looking forward to Thanksgiving with family next week and giving every single one of them a huge hug.

By the way, Morley’s experience has had another benefit. A number of people tell us they’ve stopped procrastinating about having their first colonoscopy exam. So far two of our friends have had theirs and each had polyps removed, and even the guy who owns the building where our company is located tells us he has one scheduled for November 29! If you are over 50–or younger than 50 with any symptoms whatsoever that something might be amiss–you really need to have a routine colonoscopy.  Honestly, it isn’t a big deal and you’ll probably sleep through the whole thing, but at least you’ll know all is well and possibly save yourself a nerve-wracking experience like we had.  Just think about it, will ya?

That’s it from us for now.  We hope everyone is well and that each of you has as much to be grateful for on Thanksgiving day as we do.

Love to all,
Susan and Morley

Dr. Devine said it is possible that particular section of the colon might try to sprout another tumor in the future so Morley will need a check up in six months, another in a year, and regular check ups after that, but if another one sprouts it will be easy to remove it if its caught early.  Dr. Devine mentioned there is a colorectal doc here in Atlanta who is a graduate of the Mayo and asked if we wanted him to send copies of Morley’s medical records to him so he’ll have them for Morley’s follow up exams.  Let me think about that for a second:  heck, yeahhhh!!! 

I don’t mean to dwell on this, but can you even imagine how we’d feel right now if we’d allowed that first surgeon to do what he wanted–to remove that entire section of colon and give Morley a permanent colostomy–for what turned out to be a benign tumor?  I honestly don’t know if I would have lived long enough to forgive him, truly I don’t. 

Morley is going to make an appointment to see the first surgeon just to talk about what happened in hopes it might make him a little more open minded with the next guy who comes along with Morley’s condition.  Who knows why his mind was so set on there being only one workable solution, but maybe Morley’s experience will help him realize his ”fix it once and for all” approach is not always the best medicine.  

Anyway, that’s all behind us now and we got the best possible news today. We are over the moon with happiness around this house tonight.

Love
Susan and “Good As New” Morley

In keeping with our new resolution for Morley to avoid over exerting himself, I arranged for a wheelchair to help us get from the gate to baggage claim and snarled at him every time he even thought about touching our mountain of luggage.  He was very self conscious about how it must have looked for me to be swinging all those huge suitcases around while he stood by holding my coat, but I assured him I will allow him to make up for it when we take our two week cruise in January.  (“Morley, be a love and peel me a grape.  And could you fetch me another pina colada, dahling?”)

Shelby went BERSERK when we walked in the door–it took about ten minutes for her to stop bouncing three feet in the air while licking whatever part of us she could make contact with–but of course the cats only glanced up at us with a slightly disinterested, “oh, were you gone? By the way our food bowls could use a little topping off” kind of look.  

Heather had a bottle of champagne ready for a celebratory toast, and then she served us a delicious dinner and sent us straight to bed.  I think we fell asleep before our heads hit the pillows.  I don’t even think we said goodnight to each other.

So today (and it is still hard to believe this) instead of checking into the hospital for a surgery we desperately wanted to avoid, we’re going to put a couple of hours in at the office mainly just to say hello to everyone,  and then come home so Morley can resume the resting and recovering position and I can start dealing with that mountain of luggage I mentioned earlier.

The only medical activity on our agenda today is to answer the phone when the Mayo’s pathology department calls with the final biopsy results.  Once we get that call and the news is good (which we just know its going to be), we can really, truly breathe normally again. It’s good to be home and we just can’t wait to resume the life of the living and to see every one of you. 

Speaking of seeing you, save the date:  Christmas Party at Morley’s and Susan’s, Saturday December 1.  Be there or be square:  I suspect Christmas this year will be an especially merry celebration.   

Party details to follow.

All our love,
Susan and Morley

So we are now packing our luggage in a gingerly, easy-does-it kind of way, after which we’ll go downstairs to score some breakfast, then off to the airport to turn in our rental car and catch a plane home. Yay.  We just can’t wait to get home.

Heather we should be walking in the door about 4:30 or so. 

Yay! 
Susan and “will you carry that bag please honey” Morley

His discharge papers are very clear that a fever of 100.4 degrees or higher is a sign of something going wrong.  He was just barely below 100–too close for comfort–so I put him to bed and the fever dropped to 99.6.  We’re hoping this is just a sign that we over did things earlier in the day when we killed a couple of hours at the Mall of America.  Maybe it was just too much too soon, and because his pain hasn’t been as bad as it was with the last surgery he is overly optimistic about how quickly he’s recovering.  He thinks he’s good as new…well, other than walking a little slow and taking ten minutes to sit down. 

At any rate, I’ll keep an eye on him tonight and if the fever is close to the 100.4 mark we’ll need to head back to Rochester and postpone our flight home.  Hopefully a night’s rest will put him back on track and we’ll make the flight–neither of us looks forward to spending more time in that very depressing hospital full of very sick people.  

David and Doug:  Assuming we come home on schedule, please toss him out of the office after no more than a half day on Monday and insist he go home.  And if he doesn’t cooperate, I’ll be forced to use my secret weapon–ratting him out to his mum.  Now, if I can just remember her 47 digit English phone number…

Love,
Susan and “Under the Weather” Morley

In fact, Morley feels well enough that today (Saturday) we’ve decided to check out of our hotel here in Rochester and drive back to Minneapolis to do a little low-impact sightseeing, spend the night, then catch a flight back to Atlanta on Sunday. Yay.  It still blows us away to think on Monday we’ll be having a normal day at the office instead of checking into a hospital.  I just love dodging bullets, don’t you?

So that’s it from Rochester, Minnesota.  This blog has been a lifesaver in helping us feel connected to the people we care about during an intense, roller coaster week far from friends and family, but we just can’t wait to see you in person and give every single one of you a big hug. 

Love and gratitude beyond measure, 
Susan and “Tumor? What Tumor?” Morley

PS:  (added a couple of hours after the posting above)  Just received a call from the pathology lab at the Mayo telling us the pathology results “have not yet been completed”.  Crap.  Don’t you just know we’ll be obsessing about that until we get a follow up call on Monday.  We’re trying really, really hard not to place any significance on the fact that this is the one and only thing that the Mayo has not completed in lightning speed.  Maybe an extra prayer or two would be a good thing until we get the all clear call on Monday.

Life tonight is very, very goo.

After our second or third nap of the day (we’re on a totally different time zone today) we woke up to see darkness outside and figured it was time for either an early breakfast or dinner.  As it turns out it was dinner time so we headed off to a little restaurant not far from our hotel and had a great dinner (“bangers and mash” for Morley–let’s just see if he sticks by that decision tomorrow as a good choice for his first solid food in several days) and while we ate dinner we talked about the events of the last couple of months and especially the past few days. It has been nothing less than life changing for both of us, a medical miracle wrapped up in a spiritual package. 

You just can’t come through the experience we’ve had the last several weeks without coming out the other side more appreciative of the people who make up the fabric of your life.  Impossible.

Anyway, it’s now 9:30 and we are ready for bed but we just wanted to say good night and thank you, thank you, thank you. It is truly impossible to tell you how much your good wishes and comments and prayers have meant to us these last few days.  Truly, you have no idea.

Susan and “Is It Time for Bed Yet” Morley

The reason we were so late getting back to the hotel last night was because they actually admitted Morley to the hospital when he could not shake the effects of yesterday’s anesthesia (read:  he simply could not whizz no matter what we tried).  The surgeon gave him until 8 PM to come around, but when the deadline came with no change they moved us to another floor and admitted Morley on the colorectal ward. The surgeon told Morley that as soon as he was able to “hurry up” (as we refer to it with Shelby) on his own, he could be discharged.

Being a patient on the colorectal ward was a sobering experience.  Unlike the beautiful facility of the Mayo Clinic, the hospital is all business and the people there are the really sick ones.  The mood in the Mayo is hopeful and energetic; the feeling in the hospital is somber and desperate.

Hospital rooms are hard to come by, so we were put in a semi-private room.  The guy in the other bed had just had a permanent colostomy earlier that day or perhaps the day before.  He was a young guy in his early 40s and was in a tremendous amount of pain.  They had drawn the curtain between Morley’s bed and this other guy’s, but of course we could hear everything being said on his half of the room and we listened while the nurse checked on him and asked him how his stoma was doing and offered to help him empty his new bag.  He was still so new to the reality of colostomy that he couldn’t even use the word–he kept calling it “what I had to have done to me”–and he told her how he had tried so hard to beat his health problems for five years before running out of options.  The nurse was so comforting to him and kept assuring him he would be fine and told him he’d be surprised to know how many people had an ostomy.  It was very, very sobering for us to be listening from the other side of the curtain to a conversation that would have been us in just a few days.  We felt very self concious about our incredible good fortune.

I had a similar experience on the surgical floor while Morley was downstairs on the table.  The guy on the other side of the curtain that time was a lawyer in his 30s who flown in from Michigan to have an internal pouch constructed in hopes he could have his own ostomy reversed.  Listening to the ostomy nurse show him his new “appliances” (whatever they were) and teach him and his young wife how to take care of his new pouch was hard to listen to.  That time the nurse asked him if he could do the things she was teaching him how to do, and he had such a sad but resigned voice when he said he didn’t want to even think about it yet but would do it if that’s what it took to get better.

All that sadness really contrasted with the pure joy and relief we were feeling over Morley’s miracle and even this morning as we lie in bed sipping coffee and watching our four hour clock, the memory of those two guys sticks with me.  It’s humbling.

By the way, the young resident on call last night when Morley finally achieved “the golden stream” about 11:30 took his job very seriously. At first he declined to discharge us because he wanted to be 100% sure everything was working perfectly, but being the medical rebels that we are, we said we were leaving anyway since the goal had been achieved.  Eventually the earnest young doctor realized he was facing two people who had just learned a big lesson about taking charge of their own destiny and signed the discharge papers.  We took off for the elevators like two kids cutting class.  I bet we looked cute.

Anyway, time to check the pain med clock.  More later.

Love,
Susan and “Has it Been 4 Hours Yet” Morley