Surgery 8

To quote Brooks from earlier today, "today was the fastest day of my life." I'm not so sure I completely agree with him, but he is right, today did fly by. We spent a good part of our day navigating to and meeting with surgeons.
Our first stop of the day was meeting the "new doctor", Dr. Oren Lerman (Plastic & Reconstructive Surgeon). We learned that Dr. Lerman will play a critical role in harvesting Josie's inner-thigh muscle and connecting it to it's new blood supply within her face. In his words, harvesting the muscle will take about 2 hours and then another 2 hours will be spent suturing all the tiny vessels together under a microscope. He assured us that he does this everyday, "connecting the plumbing" is the easy part. The critical part with this surgery will be the 72-hours following surgery. The muscle that they collect has a nerve, vessels and artery. If any of the newly connected "plumbing" fails to stay connected (bleeding, clotting, etc.) then death of the transplanted tissue could occur. Thus the reason for the 3-5 days spent in the hospital after surgery. Josie's vessels will be monitored every hour those first 3-days. If anything goes wrong during that time then she will be taken back into surgery so that the problem can be corrected as quickly as possible. While the success rate is fairly high (between 80-90%), higher even for children, it will be hard for us to rest until we're past those 72 hours.
Our second stop today was at our home-base💗 I love the comfort that washes over me every time we walk back into "our" clinic. The sweet nurse, Maria who always shares great un-touristy spots to hit in the city (because she knows I hate the tourist traps) and talks to me like an old friend. Danielle, our P.A. who taught me how to hail a cab all those years ago and lowered herself to begging for a surgery date for us this trip. Our doctors, well they hold our little girl literally in their hands. They have earned our trust and faith over the last 6 years and they've yet to let us down. While it's never easy to hand Josie over to them for surgery, I know without a doubt that tomorrow when I have to leave her in that cold operating room she will be in the hands that God chose to care for her. He will be guiding their hands while they work and all the while holding her in the warmth of His arms.
Surgery is set to begin at 7:30 tomorrow morning (6:30 central time). With the other small procedures that they hope to accomplish tomorrow, surgery could go as long as 9 hours. The magnitude of this surgery is overwhelming, the tears flowed freely while I typed this. Thank you to all of you who read my ramblings, pray for us, love us and wish us well (you are my therapy). Please continue to pray us through the coming days...

So many waiting rooms....