So Sophie is having surgery this Friday, surgery number.....? I don't remember! My child has literally had so many surgeries I have lost count! And it may be partially because I have severe Mommy brain after just having my fourth kid but yeah I don't know this is like number 14 or 15? Something like that. A lot. Too many. After 9 months of normal it is a little exhausting to be heading into three more surgeries, this one to remove scar, one in jan to put expanders in and then probably next fall to take them out. I have enjoyed our break but I hope it wasn't a mistake to wait so long. I feel like we will never get to the point where we say, hey we are done having surgeries on your mole. She is kind of bumming this time too, not her usual extra positive self. She doesn't want to miss out on the rest of swimming season and not be able to jump on the trampoline, her two favorite activities! She also doesn't want to be different then the other kids, she says she hates how everyone is always asking her about surgeries. She doesn't want to have pain that she is old enough now to know will be there. Probably the timing is ideal on this one though, she got to enjoy MOST of the summer carefree but now will have enough time to heal up before she starts 1st grade. That is my hope anyway.
So what is happening this Friday, she has some mole and scars that have widened from all the pulling going up her sides and he is going to try to remove that.
This is what her sides currently look like. I am not exactly sure if he is doing both sides or just one side. I had been under the impression this would be a "quick and easy" surgery. No biggie. Turns out I was wrong. At the pre-op he said that he wanted to do things a little differently than the past because her incisions keep forming big scars. He wants to use regular sutures instead of the dissolvable kind and he said that as such this will be a more intricate surgery, may take a lot longer and she may have restrictions on moving and swimming for awhile. This morning she was asking me about surgery and her biggest worry was not being able to hold her little brother. She is so smitten with him.
I assured her that won't be one of her restrictions! So please be praying for Sophie this Friday, surgery is planned for 7:30 am. He said it would be a longer one. That is a little intimidating because she has had many surgeries that were 4-6 hrs so for him to say that means...who knows!? This will be one of the only times my parents won't be able to keep us company in the waiting room too, they are so good at distracting us, we always somehow have a fabulous time together and they keep me from feeling too anxious while we wait. So be praying for Craig and I too I guess. We are still supposed to be able to come home that night though. And I am thankful we are the first surgery of the day so she won't have to wait too long on an empty stomach. And I am thankful we fit this surgery in during my maternity leave so I don't have to stress about time off. See, still so much to be thankful for! But...
Oh my sweet little Sophie. I still sometimes catch myself looking at Charlotte and Jack's perfect blemish free torso and feel such a wistful tug on my heart that my Sophie has had to endure all of this. I worry about her someday looking at her body and feeling brokenhearted too. And even though we have been through this literally too many times to count (I still can't believe I don't know the number!) every time it is horrible and awful to watch your baby get loopy on meds as they start to put her under, to have them wheel your kid away from you to be cut open and watch your big strong husband cry, to sit for HOURS wondering how it's going, to see them struggling in recovery feeling painful and disoriented, to see her swollen post-op face and have her cry when they take the IV out, to hear her groggy throat recover from hours of intubation, to go through days of watching her wince when she moves and see her sad face when others get to play and she doesn't. It is so unimaginably hard. Every time. But I'm not supposed to worry...
Prayer instead, always. Just pray don't worry. That should be my motto. I should get it tattooed on my forehead. Just pray. I feel small. I feel ill-equipped. I feel tired. I feel broken-hearted. I feel so so alone in all of this. But then I pray. And the answer always comes. God is BIG. God is well equipped. God is energized. God is whole-hearted. God is with me...in ALL of THIS! So I will pray. Will you pray with me?
