We Have a Date

I was at church yesterday when a friend gave me a hug and said, "It's been pretty quiet for a while. I guess that means that things have been challenging?" and I was surprised. She really did understand. And I was grateful that she understood.

So, yes, life has been challenging and if I write about it, I have to actually deal with it, and I have really preferred the "There is an elephant in the room and we are so not gonna talk about it" approach. But, eventually the elephant gets tired of being in the room. So here goes.

We have a surgery date. November 9, 2010. I handled that information fairly well. It was the call that came a few days later that had me spinning. When we were initially informed that Will required this particular surgery last December, my world was totally rocked. It is an ugly procedure. But when we were in Ohio last month, we were informed that because Will had grown, they most likely were not going to have to split his mandible and tongue and perform a tracheostomy. That apparently was incorrect. A few days after receiving the surgical date, I received a call from the plastic surgeon's office with a preop appointment. So they are going to split his mandible. Okay. So they are going to have to wire his mouth shut afterward. Not what I wanted to hear.

So now the questions are flowing because I now have to face this. William takes twelve drugs a day, three of them multiple times, and one is a time release. If we have to crush his meds to give them to him through a straw, then how are we actually going to make that many palatable and what do we do about the timed release? And if he is still in a neck brace, isn't that going to be insanely painful for the jaw? Will the pressure of the brace impair the healing of the jaw? There are at the moment no answers, but I am definitely posing those questions to the appropriate offices.

This information is still unknown to William, so I would appreciate prayer but no discussion with him until we provide him with details. We are not wishing to overwhelm him with the information until we get a little closer to the date...