The one thing that makes battling cancer difficult is that everything about the journey is unpredictable. In Nick’s case we knew we were looking at 30-40 weeks of in-hospital chemotherapy and we had been through this before when he was younger, so we “thought” we had a good idea of what the road might look like. Nick was admitted to the hospital today with 3 days of progressively increased swelling and pain over the left side of his face. His pain increased with speaking and closing his jaw. This was the start of a bad bacterial infection that occurred near his surgical site. Cellulitis is a bacterial infection that involves the inner layers of your skin – painful, hot, red and generally uncomfortable. My only suggestion is not to Google cellulitis images because they only post the worst cases!
I had made plans to cook a turkey, Francis Mallman style, with a rotisserie on the ground over wood. As always, I wrestled with “should I stay with Nick, or should I go” and Nick finally made the decision for me and told me to go and get it done. Nick inspires the chef in me. Tammy spent Thanksgiving with Nick and dinner was dedicated to Chef Nick who was in the hospital. We were out of the hospital 7 days later.