Pray for Emma's surgery

She comes, running, tumbling, jumping, somersaulting and bounding into the room.  She heads straight for the front door.  She heard someone enter.  Her daddy is home.  She loves being thrown up by her daddy.  She loves her daddy.  This is our active little lady, our beloved Emma Hope.  If you’ve met her and have spent any time with her, you know she is spunky, personable, wants to be involved in it all…and so full of emotion.  Her facial expressions are priceless!  It just doesn’t seem fathomable that our “healthy” little girl has to have this major surgery.  Right now she is NOT sick!

But her back…her spinal cord is tethered in three areas.  (I am definitely not the expert, but this is what I think I understand.)  Spinal cords are supposed to be loose.  As she grows, if tugging starts to happen, the nerves will start to be affected.  There is also a bone growing through her spinal column which could actually start to sever her spinal cord.  So on Tuesday, October 8^th, the doctor will make an incision from Emma’s neck to her tailbone.  He will use a laser to shrink the fatty masses that the cord is attached to and then somehow release the cord.  He will also remove that bone.  I wish I could give you an exact time the surgery will start.  We have to be there at 5:30 am to start the check-in and the prep work.  Once it begins the surgery will be 6 to 8 hours long.

Please pray.  Please consider fasting for lunch to spend time praying for our little girl.  On Tuesday, we will be waiting on pins and needles all day to hear “all went as planned, she’s doing fine and can begin recovering.”  We also want this to be a once-and-for-all surgery.  Emma will need to have MRI’s yearly because there is a 20% chance the cord will reattach and another de-tethering surgery will be necessary.  Pray for her recovery.  They say she will be in the hospital a week and then lying around for at least another week at home.  We long for her to be up and about again as soon as possible.  We also are anxious that there could be permanent damage.  We don’t want to even think about what life would be like for our Emma to never run and jump again should something go wrong.  And daddy will be oh so thrilled when that little lady feels good enough to run to the door and jump into his arms to be thrown in the air.