Well, it's been about 22 hours since my father got out of surgery.

The procedure was called an esophageal resectioning, which basically means that they removed the portion of his esophagus that had the cancer on it, and moved his stomach up to take up the slack.

He went in to the hospital at 5:00 yesterday morning, and the surgery was scheduled for 7:20. He was in the operating room for just over ten hours. We were at the hospital for eight of those hours.

Mom was just incredible during that time. She had to be in a wheelchair while she was there because, wouldn't you know it, it turns out that she has terrible arthritis in her left knee and can't stand or walk on it for any great length of time. She was convinced by both of Dad's surgeons to take a break once he went under the anesthesia, because it was going to be at least four hours before they'd be able to get word to her about the progress. Of course, that would have changed had there been any surprises or emergencies, which thankfully, there weren't.

Both my sisters were there with us. My oldest sister flew in from Kansas to be with Mom, and my older sister just lives 35 miles north in Oceanside. We tried to keep things light, but there were points throughout the day where we were just too stressed to be anything but quiet.

We DID learn to hate the PA system. Every announcement caused us to bristle with anticipation, so we figured that would be a good point to take a break.

We went to mom's house for around two hours. None of us slept, but we did eat some food and rest up. We got the call while we were home that the first portion of the surgery was completed without any problems (the removal of the esophagus section), and that they were continuing on with the placement of the stomach.

We went back at around noon, and my cousin Sam and my oldest nephew Michael had joined us. This, I'm sure, was tough on Sam, since his father (my uncle) had gone through this same condition, and while he survived the surgery, he passed just last year due to a recurrence. Still, he wanted to be there for Mom, and he and Dad had grown very close over the past few years. I'm sure Dad's chances were much improved by the amount of family wishes and prayers going his way.

At around 5:30 pm, both of Dad's surgeons came to the lobby and told us that everything went as well as they could hope for. There weren't any major issues, and he was being prepped to go back to the ICU.

They did warn us that he could be asleep and/or out of it for as much as 48 hrs. And that when he did wake up, he'd be disoriented and groggy. And he'd be on the ventilator for a full 24 hours after the surgery, so we might as well go home and rest until morning.

Leave it to Dad to make liars out of them. When we visited today just before noon, the ventilator had been out for two hours, he was breathing just fine on his own, and he was awake, alert, and making jokes. He did have numerous tubes sticking out of his nose, neck, and abdomen, so he's not going to be running any marathons just yet. However, all concerned are taking the speed of his recovery to be a good thing.

He's going to be in the ICU for another 2 - 3 days, and then in a private room for up to another 10. They'll test the integrity of the resectioned esophagus after 7 days, which means he's not going to get solid food for at least that long. He's already asking for a cheeseburger, which is also a good thing considering we were told that he'd have no appetite for a few days.

We're not out of the woods yet, but they currently look much brighter and friendlier than they did a few weeks ago.