It came anyway

And the Grinch, with his grinch-feet ice-cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so?"
"It came without ribbons! It came without tags!"
"It came without packages, boxes or bags!"

And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!
"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "doesn't come from a store."
"Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!"

Don�t tell anyone at church that I�m drawing spiritual material from How the Grinch Stole Christmas, but I found my experience last week to fit these words well. My family and I experienced a Christmas stripped of the tags, and the tinsel, the trimmings, and the trappings. �But somehow or other, Christmas came just the same�.

It came in power, I believe, because we had nothing left to grasp but a story about God coming to man in the flesh to suffer on our behalf. And as God loved us through Jesus, so too, we loved one another. The Murrays told me it was their best Christmas ever. I must agree.

Oh, and the bonus on this wonderful Christmas was that they opened me up and found no cancer beyond that which they took out. My feelings about this are multitude: elation, humility, wonder, fear, thankfulness, and apprehension of what�s next. The trite words put it well: this was my best Christmas present ever.

This is my first journey back on the internet since Christmas Eve. The reason for my absence from the Web until now is that I have been sapped of all energy. I could go into the many details of what has been happening, but will have to table that until later. So, I�ll sum up: There have been many small complications, yet each matched with a small victory. Pain and discomfort are gradually being replaced by relief.

On the 31st, I was discharged and we moved into a house owned by our friends, Lyn and Glen Ragan. It belonged to her mother, who passed away recently. They�ve generously opened it up to us for a week or two until I am fit enough to travel back to Dallas.

Today, we met with Dr. Vauthey down at the hospital. Things are going very well in his estimation. One item of interest is that the pathology report showed two cancerous nodes in the liver that had grown into each other (as opposed to a single node as we originally thought). However, the surgery provided a reasonable margin around the entire cancerous region. With this good report, they took out the 47-staple zipper across my body and then sent me home.

I�m getting a little better each day. I haven�t yet been able to sleep through the night due to pain and discomfort, but the nights are getting better. Also, I am now able to get around without the walker.

Looks like we made it through the surgery battle. Now we can focus on recovering and fortifying for whatever�s next in this war.