Life’s unwanted surprises

There are two kinds of surprises. One puts a smile on your face and brings positive excitement. That wasn’t the one my wife, Linda, and I got.

We had traveled to Denver’s University of Colorado Hospital for a check-up two weeks to the day after Linda’s surgery.

The past two weeks had been stressful. When your super strong beautiful bride is hurting it is tough on her and me.

Like many husbands, I’m the family whimp. Linda is the strong one. She had two kids, runs a business and then she puts up with me, that is tough.

After surgery and a week in the hospital she was looking very frail. However, during the week back home I started to see the return of the tough chick. Things were going very well.

So, traveling to Denver for her first post-op checkup was a positive.

When Linda was in her early thirties she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. After major radiation the cancer was defeated. Since then she has been cancer free.

An abnormal Pap smear rose some red flags and lead to the surgery. But they took everything out, including a lot of the old scar tissue left behind by the radiation.

At Tuesday’s check-up the staples were taken out and we would be back on the road.

“You are healing up great,” the Doctor said as he removed the staples.

Once removed he sat down.

“We had an unexpected surprise in the lab results,” he said.

With the radiation for the cervical cancer years ago it was extremely rare, only a few cases in the whole country, he said, but “you have ovarian cancer.”

I looked at Linda, she looked at me, both with a blank look, like we were waiting for the punch line to a bad joke. It didn’t come, the “punch line” was six intense chemotherapy treatments over a four month period.

“We caught it early,” the doctor said. “The abnormal Pap smear probably saved your life.”

It is in stage one, he said. The chances of survival is very good, but getting to the victory circle will be tough.

Driving home we talked about the impact it could have on Linda, our family, Linda’s business and my leadership of this newspaper. There were no easy answers and a lot more questions. Questions, like what kind of other surprises await over the next four months?

Whatever they are, we will face them knowing that God is by our side. He is our Rock, no surprises in His love and care. He will see us through this unwanted surprise.

Linda will take her first chemo cocktail on Thursday, June 23. Hopefully there will be no more, or at least very few additional, unwanted surprises.