Sternal What?

Well, it's been a stunning and absolutely wonderful four months since surgery.  The emotional freedom I felt after it was over caused me to want to run as fast and as far away from all things heart-related as we could.  We went swimming, running, playing and dancing and really started dreaming about the future.

The only medication we take is aspirin - same as before.

Today I am back - because we are headed to the hospital today to remove some 'sternal wires' that were placed during surgery.  One of the things that's sort of taken for granted in a heart surgery (but is actually one of the most time-consuming for the doctors, if I am understanding correctly) is that in order for them to be able to access the heart, they must break their way in....literally...and move aside layers of 'tissue' very carefully.  The sternum - or breastbone - is in the way too - and must be fractured in the process.  After surgery, it is held together with wires which are threaded through, the ends twisted together and tucked under, and eventually the bone heals and grows over them.

One of Shrav's sternal wires decided to turn itself outward and you can see it pushing up the skin in that area.  It doesn't hurt and she doesn't seem to feel it...but she is pretty upset about having to be at the hospital again today.  Especially since today is show-and-tell at school and she has been talking about what she's going to show/tell all week.  Dr. Hockmuth is planning to remove a couple of wires, possibly more if he can reach them with minimal incisions.

An interesting note about pre-op tests and bloodwork.  We did x-rays and a blood draw yesterday in preparation for today, and did them in the normal lab instead of pediatrics, and it went very smoothly this way.  We were done in minutes, instead of two hours....some of that may have had to do with the fact that we did our labs/x-ray over the weekend prior to the 'big' surgery.

We had the chance to stop up to see Dr. Reed and Shantell (Shrav's beauty consultant) in the PICU yesterday - they get to move into the new PICU at Mercy today!

On the spiritual front, I've been working on Kelly Minter's study "Nehemiah" - wonderful book about rebuilding walls that have been destroyed.  The most poignant thing about Nehemiah's story - and it parallels David's story in this way - is that it didn't matter that they were called to do something and that God ordained them for a particular work.  They were constantly under attack, despite being at the center of God's will for their lives.  Even before David's big sin....and I don't see where Nehemiah did anything to deserve the ongoing assaults from Israel's enemies......but both David and Nehemiah couldn't seem to go very long without a cunning or outright brutal attack on their person and/or the work of their hands.  The book of Nehemiah says that the people worked with one hand while holding a weapon in the other.  Yet they continued on.....

God Bless You.