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Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Change of Plans


(Ben writing....again)

Anyone reading this should first reread the last two sentences of the previous blog entry. I should not have been so presumptuous.

We started the day by arriving at Erlanger at 7:00. After checking in, getting blood tests, etc. Kristen was wheeled back to the preop holding area around 9:00 and Kristen's parents, my mom, and I went to the waiting room. At 9:45 the nurse called to tell us that the surgery just started. At 10:45, the nurse called and said that she was fine, but they were still working. This was only supposed to be a 40 minute surgery, so after more than an hour, what were they still working on? I had a dozen questions that I wanted to ask the nurse but since I didn't really want to know the answers, I said "Thank you" and hung up. 11:15....11:30.....11:45....still no word. At 12:00, the nurse called and said in a slighly less enthusiastic tone "Your wife is stable, but they are having trouble removing the filter." The all too familiar feeling of nausea hit me like a Mack truck. Had we made the wrong decision? The next hour seemed to drag on forever. Finally, at 1:00, the doctor came around the corner to speak to us.

Basically, the filter is going to stay in and Kristen is going to be fine. The doctor said he tried everything he could think of to get the filter out, but nothing would work. Something was preventing him from being able to hook the top, yet all of the scans were normal. He actually said, "There is no good reason why I should not be able to get it. I don't know what to tell you except that God wants it to stay." As soon as he said this, I knew that it was true. I am not sure why God wanted us to go through the whole surgery process only to find out that the filter needs to stay in. Maybe he knew that we would always second guess whichever decision we made. Maybe he just wanted to take the burden of making a "no-win" decision off of our shoulders. Whatever the reason, there is no doubt in my mind that "God wants it to stay" and I feel relieved (I will not know how Kristen feels about it until tomorrow. She is still getting over the anesthesia.)

Thank you to everyone who is praying for us, and I know that a lot of you are. The last 3 months have not exactly been "La dolce vita". I know that things could be a lot worse, but I can't help but look forward to days that include world travel, regular jobs (no school), and additions to the family instead of surgeries, homework, and doctor's bills. Kristen likes for me to put a picture with my posts so I picked the Eiffel Tower because whenever we can get our feet on the ground, we are going to France, Lord willing :)