On the waiting list

So after a very interesting appointment with the surgeon, Dom is now on the waiting list to have a lobectomy. The surgeon showed us the CT scan of Dominic's chest, which was fascinating. The cysts (lots of little ones) fill up about half to two thirds of the lower right lobe of Dominic's lung. We wrote down a list of questions to ask, and when we got all the answers it came down to a straight-forward (though not easy) choice: - do nothing, risk infections every time he gets a nasty bug, increased risk of lung cancer in mid life - lots of future stress - put Dom through a surgery, recovery period, and put ourselves through a huge amount of now-stress, but be able to pretty much forget about it within a month of the surgery Choosing now-stress and surgery is not an easy thing to do, but fingers crossed it's the right choice to make. I asked the surgeon what he'd do if it were his son (or grandson), and he was 100% positive that surgery was the way to go. His actual answer was something like "there's no hard data on any of this, but I am completely sure that surgery is the right choice. Not enough to report you to CYFS for neglect if you don't do it, but I'm entirely convinced..." I was reassured by two pieces of information: a) One of us gets to stay with Dom in hospital. We can't go in to the operating theatre, but we can be with Dom before and after. b) They don't have to go through any ribs - they can go between. If it all works out well, they may not have to separate any muscles. This means the recovery time is quite short - we should be able to go home after 3 or 4 days. So, we're on a waiting list which is full for the next 6 months, hoping for an operation in early summer. It's possible that another major case could be cancelled and we'd be called to come in the next day, but that's rather unlikely. We're hoping the operation isn't too close to his birthday or Christmas :-)