GOOD NEWS and SOBER GRATITUDE

At 8:45 p.m. Dr. Koynezhad shared the good news:  the surgery went very well!  Nothing can come close to describing the joy and gratitude we feel!  We wept with happiness.

It's an even bigger job than I imagined.  First she was cut down the middle, her sternum sawed apart and her ribs spread apart.  After re-routing the blood and breathing through a heart-lung machine, they stopped her heart and cut out the aortic root right up to the heart.  Dr. K. preserved the valve (which was in good shape, hallelujah) and sewed it onto the dacron replacement aorta.  Then he sewed the replacement aorta onto the heart.  Lest you think this is simple or crude, it takes 500 stitches to make it happen.  FIVE HUNDRED.

I'm not exactly surprised that it went well.  Hundreds, maybe even thousands of people prayed for it to be just that way.  I had received it already by faith.  But if I had known what was really going on I would likely have been far more anxious.

Dr. K explained that when he got inside the thoracic cavity he found the bulge of the aortic root was in fact inflated like an onion.  But what really got his attention was the "sacular bulge" that protruded from the underside of the already distended aorta.  He said that she may not have lasted even another week.  Had that delicate bubble burst Melissa would have died within seconds.  He excised the aorta with the bulge and sent it to pathology lab for analysis.  When I think that her surgery was almost postponed another week, I tremble.  More to the point, I think back 2 days ago when the doctor gave us parents and Melissa a choice whether to operate now or put it off 3-6 months.  We chose wisely.  She would certainly not have lasted six months.  And when I think that had she not had the dissection tear, Dr K never would have had occasion to notice her aortic aneurism, I'm quiet with gratitude.   Gratitude for the most painful disaster ever to come into my beloved daughter's life.  What a bizarre world and strange life.

So now we start the rehab process.  Tomorrow Melissa gets the breathing tube removed and even starts walking.  She's gonna have to fight through pain and yuk.  Tubes will drain fluids away from her chest cavity.  But I'm going to remember all I just wrote.  I'm going to be happy, deliriously happy right through her suffering.

I hope I'm not extrapolating spiritual truth where it doesn't belong, but I can't help wondering if maybe this is kinda how it is with us and God at times.  We think if God liked us, painful stuff wouldn't come along.  "Disasters" would not happen.  But I suspect when we get eternity's perspective, when we see what the angels can see, we will understand that God always was good, even when we couldn't see it.  Four days ago you could not have convinced me that the aortic dissection was anything but the worst thing that ever happened.  And today I know it helped save my daughter's life.

Maybe I'll write something more in a few days.