4.22.2003 ... Follow-up

Thanks for the emails regarding my father. They really do mean a lot to me.

My father is much better now – what a difference one week makes. He’s back at home and doing much better. He had some foreign matter growing on the surface of one of his lungs. There were a series of tests performed over the course of the last few months, and just the fact that he's been a smoker for more than half his life, it didn't take a genius to hypothesize what that foreign matter was.

They wound up removing a third of his right lung – a lobe. As scary as the surgery was, the recovery period was somewhat risky too, riddled with complications and challenges along the way.

Yes it was tough --my schedule made for long days. It was tough for everyone, and probably toughest overall for my mom. She traveled two hours each way everyday between home and the hospital and was by his side from morning till night. One can imagine this may take its toll on a person after a while.

Of course, there were some special moments to be had too. Like the time ma (mom) was feeding ba (dad) some pastries she had brought along, and had coincidentally forgotten to hand him back his dentures first. He tried his best to chew it, but just frustratedly wound up mashing it between his gums. Ma seeing this nearly doubled over laughing hysterically. It was actually quite funny – hospital humor at its best.

Well, as events start to resume back to some resemblance of normalcy, items and tasks that have accumulated pop back off like a stack – almost immediately actually. Got the car inspected, helped my sister move, spent 65 hours at work, and oh yeah … starting thinking about baby-making again.