Mom's upcoming surgery

The long drive from here to Texas is in the works. One of the interesting factors of the last few weeks was the discovery that my Mom's Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm has now reached 5 cm. That's the size they use to determine whether or not they'll go in to repair it. If it's smaller than that, the risk to your life is greater as a result of the surgery than if they just leave it alone and monitor it.

Monitor they have, and it's now at the 5 cm. An added complication for my Mom is that she only has one kidney, and the kidney she has needed a bypass done on it several years ago. The aneurysm is located right at the area of the bypass. That means that for 30-60 minutes during surgery, she will have to go without blood flow to the kidney. They'll do all they can to preserve it, but she could survive this life-threatening surgery and have to be on dialysis for the rest of her life as a result.

For now, we are putting the matter in God's hands, and she has decided to do the surgery on June 15. As it is a high-risk surgery, I am making plans to spend some time with her before the surgery just in case the worse happens.

For now, I plan to depart Wednesday afternoon, June 6 and arrive in Galveston on Friday. There, I'll get to connect with my nephew, Matt, who is in the Navy. His ship, the USS Kidd, is being commissioned in Galveston on June 9. His mom and great-grandfather (who served in the Navy in WW II) will also be there.

On Sunday, June 10, I'll drive north to Royse City (where my parents live), and spend the week with them, enjoying each other and getting ready for mom's surgery.

One uncertainty should begin to iron out next week. Dad (who has 2 artificial hips) sees his orthopedist on Tuesday, May 29 to find out if he will have to have surgery on his right hip for some muscles that are detaching. If he does, they'll have some difficult decisions to make on who is having surgery when. That may play into my plans some. We'll see. I'll keep you posted!