Monday, August 15, 2011

Surgery details....

All ready to go.....
 Ok, so as you all know, today was the day to "meet the surgeon".  He is the best part of our visit !!!  He's a wonderfully sweet man, seems very capable, and he and Mia got along great !!! No meltdown like we on Friday with the pediatrician !!!  That's the good news !!!!  Mia really likes her "new friend" Dr. Heflin !!  And, Mommy and Daddy do too.

Now, onto the not so great part of the visit.  We have been up to this point, (clearly, quite foolishly I might add) been thinking, "okay we go in, we do surgery, we fix the problem, done deal."  Yeah, not so much.
Dr. Heflin took a new set of x-rays today to get a fresh look, and well, it's somewhat worse than we thought.  Apparently, her case is really bad.  He feels fairly confident that we can get this done with 4 surgeries.  He does not want to do both hips at the same time, because given the magnitude of the surgery, it would just be too much for Mia.  They want to minimalize blood loss and pain, and feel that to do the surgeries separate would be better.  So, on the 23rd, the will go in and fix her right hip only.  She will be in surgery for 4-5 hours....and, in the hospital for 4-5 days.  While in surgery, they will do away with the additional sets of hip sockets which Mia's body has tried to produce, the will have to cut and form the sockets which never formed correctly, they will have to "clean out" the area of the socket which right now has ligaments, tendons & muscles growing in there, since the femur was never in there to keep them out, and well, cause basically they could.  And, last but certainly not least, they will shorten her femurs by about a half inch.  They will put in "hardware" (plates, rods, screws, etc) to hold everything together.  Then, she will go in a cast for 3 months.  During that 3 months, she will undergo several CT scans, to be sure that the hip isn't moving...if it does move at all, we go in immediately, open her back up and put it back. (We're praying this doesn't happen !!) 
After the 3 months, they will cut her out of the cast, and do the entire process again on the left side.  Back in the cast for another 3 months.  At some point (and I'm not clear when, I was a little 'dumbfounded' and still somewhat stuck on 4 surgeries !) they will have to go in to remove the hardware.  One surgery for each side.  Hence the total 4.
Now, this surgery is Mia's best chance at being able to avoid total hip replacements by age 20.  And, while he says she will never be 100% and will always have limitations, this will ease her current pain, and prevent further crippling.  Or so we all hope.  He does feel that Mia's hips are "salvageable", (and he tried so hard to be kind when he said that), but he let us know he's
going to do his best to get her as close to "right" as he can.
The only thing he stressed over and over again, was how "major" this surgery is, and how "horrible and long her road to recovery will be".  By the end of the meeting, we got it.  There is nothing easy about this procedure...and there's nothing easy about afterwards.

So, we will be at Egleston Children's Hospital at 6 a.m. on the 23rd of August....to prepare for surgery at 7:30 a.m. 
We are going to ask that everyone say a prayer for Mia at 7:30 a.m. on the 23rd.  Please.

We are so grateful to each and every one of you for being with us, and for walking beside us.  We love and appreciate you, your prayers, and the way that you have all loved us.
We have incredible hopes for our Mia.  We trust that God will guide Dr. Heflin, God will heal our Mia, and that God hears all of your prayers for us. God gives us strength through you.
With an incredibly sincere heart, thank you.

And, thank you for being a miracle for our Mia,
With a Mommy's heart,
xoxo


waiting for the doctor, playing with Daddy's hat.

Aren't I cute ??!!


3 comments:

  1. OH, she is indeed a cutie!( as you captioned her picture)

    Gina, I will be praying that the doctor will be surprised to find it is not as difficult as it currently looks to him. I know - the CT pictures prove it, etc., but God sometimes surprises us in a good way, too.

    This report seems to be a "downer" but I think if we keep focused on God's mercy and grace, He will see you all through it. This is difficult to bear, I "hear" it, in your writing. The worst I had to endure was two catheterizations (into a tiny 2-month-old heart, and then, just before surgery, into a little heart of a 26-month-old, and then of course, the open heart surgery - once. Which was more than enough for me! I will continue to pray for all of you, during these very tough trials.

    Love you guys,
    Linda Carr

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mia, your cousins in Boston who you haven't met will be praying for you. Once those hips are as good as new, you tell Mom you want to come to Boston to meet your cousins!
    Mary B

    ReplyDelete
  3. Linda: you are wonderfully and amazingly sweet !!! Thank you, my friend for you support !!! From one Mom to another, it just means sooo much !!!!! Still claiming all kinds of miracles for our Mia !!!! And, we grateful that you are one of them !!! We love you too !! xo



    Mary B: We love you !!!!!!!!!!! And, as soon as we can, we will plan a trip up....I can't wait for a family reunion with my Mia able to dance the night away !!!!!! Grazie mille, mia dolce cugina !!! ;) xoxoxo

    ReplyDelete

We love to hear from you !!! <3