I have been wanting to write this post for a week now but seem to have been faced with so many things that stopped me from doing so. Important, urgent things like my dad having a heart attack and finding out that he will be having bypass surgery in the next couple of weeks. But, things have settled down a bit at the moment and I so want to share here the news of Emma's six week check!
Emma and I headed down to Children's last week to see her surgeon for her first post op appointment. I was looking forward to seeing (on the inside) how things were healing for Emma. There was a long wait today to get through the normal wait, xray, wait, wait in a different room, and then to see the Dr. Emma and I were laughing a lot and making funny jokes. Our family is known to remember and repeat funny lines from shows, you tube, etc. and we kept finding things to say them to while we were waiting. When Emma's Dr.came in he said, "I heard you two were getting pretty rowdy in here!" So funny! That just made us laugh more. He was totally joking but that made it funnier.
Anyhow, he chatted with Emma about how she has been feeling, examined her and discussed that she should just keep to walking for now and not to add any other activities yet. He also decided to send her for Phsyio to help loosen her shoulder and neck muscles. He is happy so far with how everything looks.
I was curious, as were some of our friends who have asked me, where exactly do they put the bone that they hope will fuse her spine together. So I asked him. I think he misunderstood what I was asking about because he brought up an xray that they took while Emma was still in surgery. It had to do with the top 87 degree curve and where they removed that whole vertebral column. They actually did remove that whole thing. probably 3 or 4 verteba worth leaving only her spinal chord during they surgery. The xray he showed us was during that time and showed two small temporary rods that held her spine in that area until he was able to build the bone back in around her spinal chord. Crazy! He told us that usally during surgery, there is musc playing, people are chatting a bit etc. but they have a special code when everything has to be completely quiet except for communication about the surgery. Emma was one of those times. After telling us this, he leaned back in his chair and let out a sigh and said, " I don't know what you were all doing on a spiritual level but, it worked." He told us again how it was amazing how she didn't have any bleeding while they were doing all that bone cutting. The anisthetist (sp) even asked during the surgery. "Are you expecting to loose any blood?" They were, but it never happened! Emma's Dr. relayed to us how even Emma's recovery was remarkable. The staff at the hospital couldn't believe how little pain she had after all that he had done and even asked the Dr. if he had her mixed up with another patient. He also said, "I can tell you this now that the surgery is over but for 4 or so days leading up to Emma's surgery, I was sweating." He said how he knew that there was a huge element of trust for us to hand over our child to him for him to batter them in the OR for 10 hours. ( He had been worried about the surgery but little did he know that we have a great God who was taking care of all the details) I repsponded with something lame and he said, "It's good, it keeps me humble." I told him how for us, we were not worried. That we trusted him (and God) and that we were atually quite peaceful leading up to the surgery. Even up until that day. He told us that he thought we were really casual and relaxed the morning of the surgery and he found that to be a little weird for him at the time.
"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God , which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Phil. 4:7
Anyhow, Emma is doing remarkably well and will see her Dr. in another six weeks. We share this with you because we want to bring Glory to God, to share with you how God has answered your and our prayers, to encourage you that God still moves in remarkable ways. It is so easy to get bogged down with all the trials of life but I know that I and our family will be able to look back on these days and remember that God sees us and hears our prayers and is quietly orchestrating all things for our good and His glory even in the body of a young girl, using the hands of a gifted surgeon who knew and could see that God's hands were guiding his hands and all the events around this surgery. Praise the Lord!
