The nurses told me that it took two hours to prep her for surgery. She had many monitors on her, and had to have something holding her head perfectly still. They even prepared her young skin to not be irritated by lying in one place for so long. She slept through all of that.
It would take at least an hour to remove part of her skull. They would take an echo of her electrical activity. They would then go to the area that needed removing.
The surgeon would remove, then test again. When the sounds were right, they could close her back up, and work towards recovery.
All of this would take all day.
The Dr.'s warned me that when she got to recovery, she would be swollen and bruised. She would probably speak gibberish for a few days, while the brain swelling went down. I was not to be alarmed, that would be temporary.
All we could do was wait. And wonder. And wait.
But, an hour and a half in, something wonderful happened. "Would the family of Elisabeth Elliott please come to the desk? We have an update for you."
An update??!! Really!!!! The sweet nurse was on the phone, using her happy, upbeat voice. "The prep is finished. She's stable. We are now beginning surgery."
Oh, what a happy gift!! They tell parents what is happening. We didn't have to wait 10 hours to hear anything. We knew she was stable!! It was like we saw a faint, little light in the distance, at the end of a tunnel. She was stable.
We found a beautiful waiting area in a different place. We had easy chairs that we turned around to face the windows. There was classical music playing. I updated my mother, Aunt Granny, and my friends on facebook, then just looked at the beautiful sky and prayed.
The updates kept coming. The epileptologist came to find us. No seizures during surgery. She was stable. They were finding what they needed to find and removing what they needed to remove.
Our kind pastor and his wife showed up after lunch. We sat together, talked, and kept ourselves reasonably distracted. More updates. More letting everyone know. Dr. after Dr. came into the waiting room to see other families. Many families called to recovery.
A research lady came to see us. Can the hospital keep the part of Elisabeth's brain tissue that we didn't need for testing? Dr. Anderson is doing a research study into the causes and identification of epilepsy. This could help future children with epilepsy to have a better diagnosis. Of course, anything we can do to help is fine. Sign.
The best news so far happened about 3:30. Elisabeth's Dr. Anne came to see me. She had been in the surgery for a while, and saw the last echo. The sounds were normal. They had removed all they needed to remove. Dr. Curry would see us soon!
Then, there he was. Around 5:00, Dr. Curry himself came to see us. All business. She did well. Sounds were bad this morning. Perfect this afternoon. Her left temporal lobe had a big area that was malformed. He didn't think it was cancer. But, he didn't think it had ever worked. That part of her brain was disrupting the rest of her brain, and caused the problem. But, now, it's gone. She's totally stable. They're closing her up. We will be called to recovery in about 2 hours.
I was still in a little bit of shock. It took awhile to sink in. But, it finally hit me. She made it. She was OK. It seemed like the surgery worked. Soon, we would see her.
About 6:30, the call came over the loudspeaker "Family of Elisabeth Elliott, come to recovery."
And there she was. Lying on her bed. With her perfect, pale, porcelain, baby doll face. No bruising that I could see. No swelling that I could see. Perfect. Her little eyelids were shining with the ointment the nurses had put on her eyes. She had a little white cap covering the bandage on her head. On the cap was a little pink heart.
"OH! She's Beautiful!!!"
My little sleeping beauty was done. She was alive. She was breathing. Her heartbeat was even on the monitor. And she was beautiful.
"Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For thou art with me." Psalm 23:4
No comments:
Post a Comment