the day of...

Today was surgery and currently Sadie is sleeping. Surgery started late... about an hour late, she was very brave in the face of a lot of fears when heading to the OR. She did amazing! The surgery took 2hours and 45 mins which was MUCH faster that we expected. I jumped out of my seat when the pager went off to tell us the surgeon was ready to see us.

Dr. M said that surgery went well, her right ankle had a ton of stuff taken out of it (hand full) and he does feel that another surgery will probably be needed, but he would like to push it out as long as possible. We will know in about 2 weeks how much relief this surgery gives her and that will gauge the timing of the one to come (which would include reconstructing the bones in her foot to line up properly). Dr. M didn't feel that her staying in a hard cast for 4 weeks will be needed as he originally thought; so the plan is that the cast will come off when he sees her next week and she will go into a non-weight bearing boot. This is great news because it gives her a chance to take the boot off, bathe and just have some fresh air.

The left leg, where the growth surgery took place; all went well in surgery.

After talking to Dr. M we were taken to the room Sadie would be staying and waited for her (for over an hour) to get out of the recovery center. She came to us awake, but very groggy. She stayed awake for a few hours, drank water, ate crackers, then a meal, then back to sleep. There are two big issues at this point: 1) her left leg is extremely sore. even morphine didn't cut the pain (on a scale of 0-10 she is saying about a 8). They gave her another type of pain medication, tried repositioning it (which caused even more pain) and then the doctor came to see her. He said that the left leg will be way more painful over the next few days/week than the right side because of the fact they had to drill into her growth plate. Obviously this is no fun, but we will be diligent to stay on top of the pain and be on our knees that the Lord will help her tolerate the healing process. 2) we are in a shared room. I know this might come across selfish or uncaring, but the first two hours of being in this room have been NO fun. The person we are sharing with has been very unkind in the words spoken to the nursing staff (staying they are incompetent and unkind - both are not true) and talking about "barfing" and then full out screaming. We have asked both the charge nurse and a doctor to be moved and we are still here. What I will give as a huge praise is that I called a dear friend and said, please bury this in prayer cause it is really hard on Sadie (she was trying to plug her ears... trying to say "just be strong".... trying to cope with listening to this other child) and within 15 mins of me making that call, the child has fallen asleep. Thank the Lord! Please pray around this shared room situation. We want to make the best of it, but want Sadie to get the rest she needs to heal.

I am going to sign off for now... thank you for all the texts/emails/phone calls - we didn't get many of them until recently, but we knew we were being thought of and prayed over and that is greatly appreciated. God is good; He brought Sadie through the surgery safely, she remembers what she wanted to remember (even with the pre-med) and even cracked a joke to the nurses before she fell asleep.

Thank you and God Bless!!!