Probably, very few would call a heart surgery a blessing. Relief? Yes. Life-changing? Yes. Grateful its over? No doubt. But, again, blessing doesn’t immediately come to mind when you think of handing your 3 year old over to somebody ready to take her back to a surgical suite.
I remember well the events of that morning. We got up really early after going to bed really late. The last thing I remember the evening before was a prayer we offered for Sofia and then a deep sleep, albeit for only a few hours.
But, anyway, back to this thing about “blessing.”
So many of you have followed Sofia’s story…the hole that just didn’t close (that kinda sounds like a twisted nursery rhyme to me…you know, “The Little Engine that Could”). Anyhow…Sofia had a hole between the two upper chambers of her heart since birth that caused oxygenated and deoxygenated blood to mix (something that is neither normal nor good). To give you a reference for the size of the hole, it was about the size of a grapefruit. Well, maybe I’m exaggerating (lying in fact), but that does add some humor to an otherwise “downer” topic. For another morsel of humor, one of our teammates (one that will remain nameless…so, don’t worry, WES, I don’t plan on mentioning your name) once told me,
“You know, bro, this hole-in-the-heart thing could really be a great pitch you could make during fund raising. Imagine this, you’re on stage at a church, you invite Sofia to join you and have her say with a beautiful smile and delicate voice, ‘You see, I have this hole in my heart and we really need money to fix it and to go to Peru.’”
Needless to say, my unnamed teammate and I had a hearty laugh at the prospect….a laugh I really needed at the time in the thick of things with Sofia’s heart, moving from the Friendship House in route to Costa Rica, fund raising, etc.
But back to the matter at hand…
About two months ago, after learning that the hole had almost doubled in size during our time in Costa Rica (no exaggerating this time), Sofia had a procedure-one they consider minor (apparently they forgot that this is my little girl and that there was nothing minor about it)-to fix the hole in her heart. Thankfully, everything went very well that day and has since gone well. In fact, just days ago, Sofia and I made a trip to Lubbock for one of her various follow up appointments. Her doctor mentioned that the enlargement of her heart that was present for quite some time (due to over exertion) was now gone and that, in his words, “it looks like a normal heart.” I’ll remember those words for years if not for my lifetime.
Something that had been hanging over our heads for quite some time was gone in a matter of months. My little girl’s heart was normal looking (minus the shiny metallic implant visual on an ultrasound). Even today, I write these words with a knot in my throat thinking about the gravity of his words. The knot reminds me of the uncertainty of the previous years, the uncertainty of that morning when I “handed my little girl over” for surgery.
So we are blessed that our little girl is doing very, very well these days. You might be interested to see a short video on our blog of her dancing and showing off just how well she’s doing. Dancing is by far one of her favorite past times and her new energy level (which is quite notable) prompts her to do so much more of it these days.
For us, “blessing” lies in the fact that this is now a thing of the past for our family. We no longer worry what the hole might look like….has it grown, has it shrunk, or has it closed like we had always hoped? There’s no need for these thoughts to cross our minds anymore. In fact, the only reminders we have these days are the faint memory of life before the mushroom (that’s what we called the implant to help Sofia understand what was going to take place) and the daily aspirin that Sofia always helps us remember she needs to take. “Blessing” also lies in the fact that we’ll tackle Peru with Sofia running on all cylinders. She is a healthy little girl that remains spunky and full of life. She remembers her surgery well but we can laugh about it now.
That, my friend, is a real blessing.
Many of you have certainly walked this road….health concerns for your kiddos. You know what I’m talking about….you know the blessing in having your child’s surgery as a memory rather than a daunting reality…you know the blessing in starting life afresh with a healed child. That’s what I mean by blessing. One more thing…for you guys that are interested to know exactly what they performed on Sofia, click here. This is a newer minimally invasive procedure via the cath lab that closes the hole without the need for open heart surgery. Again, a blessing.
One last memory if you’ll permit me. On our survey trip to Peru, I spoke with a Peruvian pediatrician about Sofia’s condition which, at that time, we had only recently discovered. Everything he mentioned was right on par with what our pediatric cardiologist in Lubbock said…the only difference (and what a difference it is) is that the surgery to fix the hole would have to be open heart in Peru. How thankful we are to have fixed it here, to have fixed it now.
Praise God for the blessings in life!
