We heard from the plastic surgeon's office on Tuesday night and decided on November 14 for Rachel's "pi procedure" on her skull. They call it that because the cuts they make resemble the Greek letter "pi". As I said, we saw an actual picture of this procedure at Dr. Wetjen's office. The plastic surgeon, Dr. Bite, has a few other plans for the operation, like basically turning the front part of her head into a sort of jigsaw puzzle and putting it back together. (As we waited for him to arrive, his nurse told us, "It sounds bad, but . . .", described what was going to happen and how great Rachel will look after she heals with a huge smile on her face the whole time.)
David wanted to watch.
I wanted to throw up.
I am probably more likely to get my wish. :o)
As you can tell, I am in a much better state of mind since our consult at Mayo. It was clear after our appointment with Dr. Bite that this is really a plastic surgery. Dr. Wetjen is there to protect the brain and cut where Dr. Bite tells him to. As long as everyone shows up and does their jobs, risk of any complications is "way below 1%." Dr. Bite says not to "lose any sleep" over this. Whenever I feel my sense of peace start to wane, I pull up my favorite verse, "Why are you terrified? Have you not yet found faith?'', I remind myself of these most welcome quotes from our doctors and, of course, Dr. Wetjen's "she'll be fine."
More than anything, this experience has been an exercise in trusting God and giving up the illusion of control. I really like that feeling of being in control, even if it isn't real. Until now, I could pretty much always say, "Just give me the baby," and make everything all right. Getting the courage to trust these doctors has been huge step for me. It's not like I want to do the surgery, (give me an X-Acto knife and some super glue STAT!), but I before our appointment just couldn't imagine handing my daughter over to another person for four hours. That, and I kept having this nagging feeling like they were going to say, "Well, we can operate on very intricate brain tumors and facial abnormalities, but we can't help you. Sorry." Yeah, sometimes my worries aren't quite in touch with reality. :o)
Now that I've met these very smart men, I can. I am so glad God has given people such gifts of knowledge to assist Him in healing His people. I was looking up some background on our doctors the other night and I could barely understand half of Dr. Wetjen's research in pediatric brain tumors and brain disorders. These people are crazy smart.
Awesome.
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