Thursday evening

Martijn on Monday evening before surgery

This morning began badly, with news that Martijn had experienced internal bleeding during the night and was back in surgery. After three hours, the surgeon reported they had stopped the bleeding from a blood vessel in his abdomen, and that he was back in the recovery area. When we visited, he was sound asleep; small wonder after eight hours of surgery the previous day and then this additional procedure this morning.

We heard a slightly different story from the surgeon today about the status of the cancer. She said they had removed the whole tumor, but that they still needed to do an analysis to see if there was more cancer. In any case, we will not have the results of this analysis until Thursday. So, in the meantime, the focus is entirely on Martijn’s recovery from this extensive, two-stage surgery.

When we visited him again after dinner, Martijn was awake and sounding very much like himself: complaining about the care at the hospital and criticizing various political leaders, past and present! It was very reassuring, as you can imagine. His color also looked good, but it was clear that his body is badly depleted by this whole ordeal, and that what he needs most of all right now is to rest and heal.

They are planning to move him back to his private room in the morning, and we expect that he will remain in the hospital for at least three weeks. They have him in a very special bed that uses sand and air to support him comfortably and facilitate the healing process. We don’t expect to learn anything more about the cancer situation until Thursday next week, but we will continue to post updates. If you wish send cheerful cards, notes or photos, as we will post them in his room. Martijn will not be able to use email for quite some time to come. But if you like, please post comments on the blog. Suze will read these.