what 'how hard it must be' means. [[updated]]

So, we've known for several weeks now that my uncle has stomach cancer. It started with a surgery for what was thought to be a bleeding stomach ulcer. He almost died on the table, and almost once afterward. [[This was not helped by the fact that my uncle was very overweight.]] And then they found that it was stomach cancer.

He's been losing a lot of weight since then, and once he had recovered enough from the first surgery, they did a second surgery to remove the cancerous portions of his stomach, reduce the size of his stomach to help with weight loss, and maintaining weight loss. They also removed some lymph nodes to test.

My aunt called us on Mother's Day to talk to my father. The surgeon told her that they removed 3/4 of his stomach, all of which was cancerous, and that there were [[deemed to be?]] microcancerous cells in the remaining portion of his stomach. In addition, of the 10 or so lymph nodes removed and tested, at least 5 were cancerous. So it's apparently spreading. My aunt pressed for an estimate of how long he has [[with the surgeon protesting, 'I'm not an oncologist,' until he reluctantly estimated maybe a year]]. She looked the surgeon straight in the eye, and said, 'You don't really think so, do you.' And he responded, 'No, I don't.' My aunt didn't think that my G-ma [[my uncle's mother]] should be told the news over the phone, so my father went down to his mother's house on Mother's Day and broke the news to her.

The surgeon officially told my uncle yesterday. Word is that he plans to fight the cancer. I hope and pray that goes well. [[To those who emailed or commented, thank you, but I'm doing fine. I just wondered at the irony of it, when I posted.]]

Meanwhile, what with school being done, and being back in the hometown / working at the college whilst my friends are taking finals, I hung out with some of them last night and went to the Compline service. They sang Abide With Me, my uncle's favourite hymn.

That's all the news I have thus far on this matter, though I do owe you a post or three about occurrences [[involving the Ideal, natch]] since I've been back. More on that later.

Update: The uncle plans to fight the cancer, and likes his oncologist. His oncologist is estimating 2-3 years, so things are not quite as dire as originally thought.