Beginning of A Long Journey

I think every military spouse, brat, family members, or even friends know what it's like to wait. We're "used" to waiting for letters to come in the mail, we're "used" to waiting for that email, that phone call or even a peek at the webcam just to see our love ones. I think waiting...well it's just part of our normal day lives. Well, waiting more than the average citizen anyways.

And somehow after years of waiting and hoping, you thought you'd be used to it. You thought you're used to waiting months just to hear that person's voice, just to see that person again, but it never gets easier. Never.

And while waiting in the military world, I have found that out in the civilian world, my patience can out last any of my civilian friends. I've also found that while waiting for someone, I hardly check the time. Maybe all this waiting in the military world got something to do with it, maybe not.

I'm going off on a tangent, anyways...

Sean had his surgery today, what doctors thought would take four hours, took nine. Every second of that extra five hours, I thought about what is going on in there, I thought and wonder IF there's anything going on. And every second waiting, I wish the doctors, the nurses would stop by and tell us the play-by-play. If only, if only right?

While waiting for Sean's surgery to be over, my parents send me to the Teen Lounge. They asked me (more like told me?) to try and focus on my school work. I have less than 20 days before school starts and though with everything that's going on, they hope I will focus on the my summer homework I've been putting off. At this point, I can tell you I haven't got anything done. My parents are looking for results, not hear about the excuses, but really I had no heart in doing anything. And truly, I refuse to work on anything that I'm not going to put my entire heart and mind into.

So I sat at the Teen Lounge and stared right into the big screen TV they got. Even then, time doesn't seem to have sped up. And for once in a long time, I've found myself constantly checking the clock on the wall, the time on my computer and even the time on my watch. Strangely...time floats by so slow when you do that and every second of it feels like an eternity.

Not even this HUGE TV could cheer me up/make the time zoom by faster.

Nine hours later, the doc finally walked out and told us the operation was done. There was a sigh of relieve from my parents and me. The doc said, "The operation went well. Took us longer than expected and there was more tumor mass than we initially expected but we were manage to remove most of the mass." I remember thinking WHAT THE FUCK DOES MOST MEAN.

Turns out, just because you remove the tumors doesn't mean it's completely gone. Sean will still have to go through radiation and maybe even chemotherapy to prevent it from growing and spreading. In ways...we're back in square one. But hey, somewhat of a good news, I'll take that. (Strangely in my mind I wonder if this is what my parents went through after my accident, after my operation)

The doc even had the "courtesy" of reminding us about Posterior Fossa Syndrome. Basically, it means that there's a chance that Sean might wake up a different person (make sense...since you're messing with the brain...) Supposedly, one out of five kids will suffer from PFS after surgery. If Sean have PFS (I'm hoping not) he might wake up and be fine right away but within 24-48 hours he might stop talking, walking, or even lose the use of arms as well. That sounds bad, real bad so we're hoping and praying that Sean won't show signs of PFS (Funny thing is, I can see Sean smiling and laughing thinking it's "cool" to not be able to walk, to be just like his cousin.)

So after a long day, we're relieved and yet, in ways, we're all still very nervous. Who wouldn't be? It is cancer. All we can do now is keep praying and hoping that Sean will continue fighting off this nasty enemy.

Our plans (for now):

Dad's going to spend the night in ICU with Sean while Mom and I are going to head back to the hotel. Dad hopes that I will finish my summer work soon but he's not going to "disallow" me seeing Sean just cause the work isn't done. (Sounds like a huge GUILT TRIP to me!)

Tomorrow morning Mom and I are going to spend some hours with Sean and we'll adjust the hours till Sunday when we'll drive back to post so my parents can be settled for work on Monday. As for me, since there are school events I must deal with, I'll be driving back and forth between the hospital and home until school starts.

Going to be pretty interesting/eventful for the next couple days. Hopefully everything will turn out just fine.

Big shout out all my friends all over the world who've been asking about Sean, praying for us, and sending good vibes our way. You guys rule, wouldn't know what to do without you guys.