An Afternoon Worth or Worry and Tears

I met with the surgeon yesterday. Luckily my aunt volunteered to go with me. I didn't ask anyone to go because I thought that I could handle it on my own. I'm stubborn like that. You would think that I would have learned by now.

Dr. Knight, the surgeon, was very kind and explained everything very well. He said that (unlike we thought earlier) the tissue is intralober. It is inside the lung. Because it is inside her lung they will have to remove half of her right lung. That is the only way to get rid of the tissue. If we left the tissue alone it would continue to cause constant infection and eventually lung cancer. So we are doing to surgery. We really have no choice. Fortunaly her lung will "regenerate" iteself and continue to build new air sacs until age 7. She should have 100% air capacity and no lasting effects from the surgery. Except for a long scar on her right chest beneath her arm. There are risks with the surgery, as with any surgery. But I'm trying not to think about those. She will be in ICU for 2 days with a total hospital stay of 5 days. Dr. Knight averages about 1 of these surgeries a year. But Sadie's case is different. Something that they really haven't seen before. With a pulmonary sequestion there is usually an artery leading to it with a blood supply. This is blood coming from the heart to the tissue. Sadie's does not. Instead it has large vein leading from the tissue to the lower right chamber of the heart. It is putting blood back into the heart. It's not a major blood supply or anything that will be missed. But it is unusal. Dr. Knight and his partner Dr. Molik will be doing the surgery. Along with a ton of surgical residents, nurses and other people. They would like us to schedule the surgery in the next month or two. Before any more infections can set in. I do have a call into Logan hospital in OKC to see if I can get anyone there to look at her scans for a second opinion. If I have no luck there then I will move onto Mercy in KC. Unfortunately we are on a timeline. The quicker I can get a second opinion the better. Either we have to decide on when to have the surgery and how to rearrange a week of our lives this summer. I'll try to keep you all updated on any changes. Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers. Please continue them. We need all of the help that we can get. =)