Greetings, all:

Well, my sister has her big surgery today. 16 years ago she battled lymphoma, and now she is battling cancer that she received from the treatments she underwent from that first fight. For the last four months, she has been undergoing intense and very painful chemo treatments, leaving her in the hospital for a week at a time with each cycle. It has been a tough road for her.

Hopefully, today’s surgery will be the big step she needs to finally put much of this behind her.

Originally, they were simply going to amputate her leg to save her life, but thanks to some unbelievable research that’s been conducted, tested, and proved worthy, she will have much of her femur bone removed, her entire knee (this is where the cancer is centralized) and have it all replaced with titanium rods and bones from donors. They expect that she’ll be walking within 24 hours of the surgery, and she should be home by the end of next weekend.

That’s if all goes well. There’s still the chance that they will have to take the leg during the operation, but the doctors seem pretty confident that won’t be the case. Let’s hope so.

Like I’ve said in so many posts, Cindy’s such an inspiration. When talking to her on the phone today, I was amazed by her calm composure, her optimistic thinking about the way life will be a year from now, and just her overall reaction to all that has happened to her. She’ll be in surgery for about 6 or 7 hours, and that alone is enough to send any of us into a bit of a frenzy.

But not Cindy. She’s just that strong, and she’s embraced life that willfully.

Here’s to her and to a good story coming out of the surgery.

I love you, Cindy.

I’ll post an update later tonight when I get any news. Thanks, all, for keeping her and my family in your thoughts.