Hello Dear Tribe:

We are six hours into this process, and things are looking good.

The surgeon came out and talked to us while the team was bathing Cynde’s abdomen in a nice, warm chemo wash. We have about two more hours to go before she is in recovery, but so far, so good.

Here is what we know…

Her cancer was pretty aggressive and had set up shop throughout her belly. The oncology team removed her ovaries, uterus, omentum, appendix and part of her large intestine. They also spent about an hour carefully looking for small tumors and zapping them with what I am calling their anti-tumor gun.

There are still a few tiny pockets of cancer cells that need to be evicted. We are hopeful the chemo wash today, along with her ongoing chemotherapy, will take care of those remaining areas.

How are we feeling?

Mostly, we are anxiously waiting for the surgery to be over and for Cynde to be safely resting in recovery.

But we also feel incredibly grateful that these first six hours have gone about as well as they could have. There were no unexpected surprises, and when we asked the surgeon how she felt about the outcome so far, she used one very important word:

“Optimal.”

Here’s to optimal.

We will take optimal ALL DAY LONG.

I will update everyone as soon as she is out of surgery and in recovery.