Surgery next Tuesday

...and no, it's not the last one.

Sigh.

At our follow-up appointment on Wednesday, the surgeon said he thinks some of the tissue on the left side of her flap shows signs of dehiscence. That's just a fancy term for the tissue coming apart. Again.

Emily's going into surgery first thing on Tuesday and the surgeon will release her tongue (not the flap) and suture anything that is coming apart. (Hopefully it's not much!) He's also going to reattach her arch bars and anchor them to the bone in her jaw. That means her jaw will be wired shut for another week or two. That timeline depends in a large part on what the surgeon sees on Tuesday. He doesn't have a clear look at the flap at the follow-up appointments because her tongue is also attached to the roof of the mouth so Tuesday will let him see exactly how everything is healing.

She's tolerating the oxygen therapy really well so we'll keep that going as long as we can. We were only granted 12 visits by the insurance, but if most of her flap looks good on Tuesday we may push for some additional visits to try to assist the healing.

And how are we doing? Emily is not thrilled about this, but she is on board at least for the moment. I'm trying to figure out what it is that bothers her about the surgeries so we can have her a little more comfortable going into this next one. I am pushing through. I had a hard time explaining it all to her at the appointment without crying. If you've seen Soul Surfer, there's a scene right after Bethany Hamilton sees her stump for the first time. The interaction between her parents right after that would be a great example of how I'm doing. (And if you haven't seen it, watch it. It's a great movie! I watched it during our last in-patient stay. ;))

I'm trying not to be frustrated and wallowing in self-pity. Emily's issues are not terminal, and if all of these surgeries fail she will just go back to wearing an obdurator (retainer). But I'm a bit mad that she might be going through all of this for naught. I know this is just one season of life and at some point we will look back on this and maybe see how it all fits with everything else in her life. Right now it's just hard.