Recovering

James is out of surgery now and recovering well. He is in quite a bit of pain, but feels good. The surgery went well by all accounts. The most eventful thing was that when he was coming out of anesthesia, he apparently ended up on his hands and knees with the breathing tube still down his throat. The fellow said that often younger males come out of anesthesia somewhat aggressively, but that he had never seen anything like that. It seemed especially funny given James' temperament.
A friend who is an occupational therapist here came by and said that the doctors had written orders for physical therapy. James said he wasn't up to it (he had just been out of surgery less than an hour). I couldn't believe that in all my years as an OT, the only thing I had taught him was that he could refuse therapy. The good news is that the PT , who is a friend and co-worker came anyway and James felt up for a walk. He is doing great. He has a chest tube in that we expect to come out in the morning. If his lungs are good on x-ray then we will get to go home and then will come back up for chemo on Thursday. We are hoping that his chest can heal rapidly so that if chemo does make him throw up again that it won't be so painful.
The other eventful news of the day is that James has started to lose his hair. I think it is a harder day for me than for him. Up til now, we have not had any real obvious outward signs that James has cancer. It will be hard to have that constant reminder. James has also had a hard time having much of an appetite and is losing weight, which is also becoming more obvious. We are hoping to help him keep the weight up and will look forward to hair hopefully for the coldest part of the winter.