Surgery #7

Todays appointment was not so scary for me.  I felt confident that they were going to recommend surgery, after all, you can't leave someone with a leaky hole in their belly, and 9 months should have been plenty of time if it would heal.  

Unfortunately we had to wait a bit, a good 40 minutes in the room before anyone came in (and that after I had "enquired" about waiting any longer!).  I'm no rookie though, and had brought a bag of gummy bears with me to pacify the kids.  That works, but after about 30 minutes Toby starts rolling on the floors etc which is unacceptable to me!

Anyway, as we sat and watched I was taken aback at how far we've come.  I could remember Emma sitting on this bed as an infant, then a toddler...

And here she is now, such a big girl, full of promise...

The doctors all see it too, and her doctor, as always takes a picture and texts it to his colleague, and Emma's original surgeon.  I can only imagine how cool it is to save a baby's life only to see them blossom into a healthy kid.

Sure enough, it's time for surgery and Scott and I decided last night to try and get it done quickly.  I asked for a Friday to get the weekend for extra recovery, but I wasn't expecting to get THIS Friday!  Well, there's no time like the present and this is one of few weekends this fall we have nothing planned. 

I thought the timing would be perfect because, well, it looks like Scott will be laid off sometime in the next week, but since he may still have work Friday I may take her by myself.  I'd never consider it if we hadn't just been through it 5 months ago, but it seems doable.  

The surgery itself should actually be a blessing!  Here's why:  The current site (top illustration by doctor and dark circle in photo) is a hole surrounded by a ring of scar tissue.  It's not pretty.

The surgeon will cut out the whole hole (!) and then stitch each layer back up (see bottom illustration).

The result should looke more like the scar you can barely see on the lower right of the photo, a faint white line.  That will be much less disfiguring for Emma (even though she will not be allowed to bare her belly ever, says her protective Dad!!).  (The other big scar is where her belly got stitched up as a baby.)

So, in all, surgery: good!  I'm less nervous about the anesthesia because she just had it and they will follow the same procedure, may even be the same guys!  The whole thing is in God's hands and we will be praying for Him to annoint the surgeons with wisdom and skill.

I'll let you know what happens post-surgery!