Our first meeting with the doctors in Chicago was a bit overwhelming. We met Dr. Bauer and Patel early Sunday morning and went over the surgery plan. It wasn’t that we weren’t impressed with them, we were. They were very professional, personable and answered all our questions. The troubling part was talking about Ella like she was a carpentry project. The discussion was around what to cut? where to move what? And what will get hurt. It was very disturbing to see the model of Ella’s skull. The degree of asymmetry is really striking. Ella was sitting right there, making the situation more surreal. It was evident they had given the problem a lot of though. The model had various marking for alternative approaches and several templates were cut out of film to measure things on it. It seems the procedure will be more dramatic than we expected. Surgery will take some 5 hours and then Ella will need to remain in the intensive care unit for two days, sedated and breathing through a tube. The reason is a precaution because swelling may occur blocking Ella’s ability to breath. After two days she will be moved to a normal ward and should be released after a couple of days. We are both very apprehensive about the whole business.
What is pushing us forward is the thought that it will make things better for her down the road. Ella was very sweet today and behaved wonderfully at the restaurant when we went out with our relatives. I am worrying about the difficult time she will have after surgery and the setbacks to her development.