You take the good, you take the bad...

I think that most people know that I had hand surgery last September. If you didn't know, it's not that I didn't want to share, it's just that it happened so fast, that I didn't really have time. I had discovered a bump on my right hand last May. I had my doctor friend Sujay look at it and he told me that since it wasn't hurting me, it was probably just a fatty deposit or a ganglion cyst. (Ganglion cysts are pretty common and don't necessarily require surgery.) So I didn't really think about it futher until...

In August, I noticed discomfort when I was writing, so I decided to go to my doctor who also thought that it was a ganglion cyst, but recommended that I see a hand specialist. I made an appointment with the specialist in September and he told me that I needed to remove it.

Me: OK, I can just schedule something in the next few months,
right?
Doc: No, I mean next week.
Me: (in shock) How long will I need to take off work? Like a week?
Doc: No, 6-8 weeks.
Me:
WHAT????!!!!

So, it turns out that it is a spindle cell fibrous tumor. Whatever that means... I kept asking him if it was cancerous and didn't really get a straight answer. (I'm guessing a lot of people tend to freak out when they hear cancer.) But I just wanted to know. Here was one of our conversations.

Me: So is the tumor benign?
Doc: No.
Me: So it's malignant?
Doc: Well, there are different kinds of tumors...

Prognosis: He did tell me that the tumor would not spread to other body parts. There's a possibility that it would return to my right hand, but it's unlikely.

After the surgery, it was hard for me to do the simplest things. Here's a couple of prime examples:

1. Wearing pants- the only pants that I could wear were the kind with an elastic wasteband. Sure, Edwin could help me button my pants if I was home. But if we were out and I had to go to the bathroom by myself, it could have gotten real ugly.
2. Writing/typing- Stupid things like signing receipts became kind of a hassle, but I did improve my ability to write with my left hand.
3. Eating- Silly as this may sound. I think I stained all of my T-shirts because I kept missing my mouth trying to eat with my left hand. (I could also only wear T-shirts for 3 weeks because they were the only clothes that could fit over my cast.) And forget about using chopsticks!

So, yeah, it was kind of a scary time for me, but also kinda good. There were definitely some positive things about this experience for me and it definitely reinforces to me that God does work in mysterious ways and that with everything bad thing, there comes some good. Not being able to use my right hand made me realize that I can and should slow down. I've always said that work isn't the most important thing in life. But having to stop work almost immediately, made me realize that the work will get done with or without me. You always think that everything will come crashing down when you stop working, but now I know that that doesn't happen. Life goes on. As I like to say at work, "No one ever died because we didn't get that survey out today."

It also reminds me of one of my favorite Bible verses- Matthew 6:34. "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

The other awesome thing that would not have happened if I didn't have a tumor in my hand is that I would not have gone to Japan for 10 days. I loved Japan. My friend Kaori had already planned to be in Japan to visit her family in Okegawa. She generously offered to let me stay with her family while she was there. Edwin donated his miles to me so that I could go for free. So, I had housing and plane fare taken care of, and I had the time off with nothing to do. Any objections? I don't think so! Anyway, I think that I will leave the tales of adventures in Japan for another day. To sign off, I think I will leave you with a picture of how my hand looks now that it is 95% back to normal. (Yeah! No more hand therapy!) For a picture of me in my cast, see our profile picture above.