Unexpected News

We got a call from one of Mark's doctors this afternoon. I had gone out to take Kaitlyn over to the Sweeney's. (She's going backpacking with them over in the Bend area for three days. I thank God for that family. They are the reason Kaitlyn is having a more or less normal childhood. Or ... more normal than she would otherwise! They take her all over the place with them, pay for her to go to camp, stuff like that. And they just love her up. Well, it goes the other way, too--just without the money aspect. I love their daughter Shawne to pieces. She is SUCH a character, and I couldn't ask for a better best friend for my daughter. A while back, Shawne called me her "other mom." All right! I'll take it!)

But I've gotten totally off track again, haven't I? I was saying how I went to drop Kaitlyn off at their house and when I got back, Mark came out of the house, looking a little stunned. It turns out that Dr. Weiss, from OHSU, had called. They--as in, the whole team, all six doctors--want to see him on Wednesday in their offices. Within a couple of weeks, they want to do a cardiac catheterization (since the one that was done a couple of years ago at St. Vincent's was botched). They are thinking, apparently, that they are going to do surgery to open up the oxygen flow to Mark's lungs. I'm not sure how they plan to do this. I'm almost certain it would involve removing the band on his pulmonary artery that was supposed to have been removed years ago, but somebody forgot. (How do people forget this kind of thing?) I had been under the impression that it couldn't be removed now, but ... maybe it can? Or ... maybe they're thinking of doing something else?

I'm not even going to go into how I feel about all of this because I have too many confused and contradictory feelings. Mark is clearly nervous, and I certainly don't blame him for that. His docs are excellent, but there is always some risk with this kind of thing. And I have to think that there could be quite a lot of risk involved, but ... it might do some good. I think ... a certain amount of risk is warranted for a chance at improving his life. But I can't honestly say that I'm not nervous, too. And I'm not the one going under the knife! Well, one step at a time, right? Right.