Jeff update

People have been asking, and I'm overdue to give an update on my brother Jeff's status:

On Tuesday he had surgery to repair the leak that developed around his chest tube. The surgeon, Dr. Greenlee, says the surgery was a success, but he did find cancer and removed the upper lobe of Jeff's lung, along with some lymph nodes. More samples were taken, so we're awaiting tests to confirm the diagnosis ... but I assume Greenlee wouldn't have taken that step if he wasn't already darned certain of the diagnosis. I also assume Jeff''s going to have to have some chemotherapy later on, but the next course of action on that front remains to be seen.

So he's back on a chest tube, as the rest of his lung settles into the resulting space. However, he was looking really good on Wednesday and was already up and walking around, as well as sitting in a recliner instead of being stuck in bed. It was some major-league surgery. As of this writing he was in room 2205 (entrance 10 at Parkview Regional Medical Center), but I don't know if and when they might transfer him to another room. We expect he'll be in the hospital another 4-6 days.