Praising God from whom all blessings flow..

I'm sitting here on a padded hospital chair, watching Sophia quietly sleep. God gave us many glorious blessings today.

The staff have been so kind. Just after Sophia was given a sedative to decrease her separation anxiety prior to surgery, the hospital had to call a hold on all surgeries due to tornado concerns. An hour later, the they were able to continue, but the sedative had to be readministered. But it was effective, and although Sophia clung somewhat to my hand, she let go quietly as they took her into the OR.

Dr. Manning told us afterwards that everything he did went better than he expected. He first looked into her
airway and could see the bend in it, where he could tell that it was being squashed. Next he began to enter her ribcage through one of her old incision sites, but the bones were fused together. So he went up one space higher and came in just above her implant. He saw that there was more space around it then had appeared on th CT scan image. So he replaced it with the larger implant. He had had concerns that the old one might be difficult to remove due to scar tissue, but he was pleased when it came easily out.


He then separated the thymus from her lung which created a window down to her heart. He pulled on the pericardium surrounding the aorta and was surprised to find it more stretchy than he thought. He was able to pull it all the way to the sternum. He also found that her lung tissue which had herniated over into the right side was firmly stuck together and moved smoothly in a mass back to the left side. He moved it out of the way, to the left, and stitched the pericardium to the sternum very tightly with three stitches. He told us that bone is sometimes very tough to get through, but he was to find he could get the needle through it easily. He got three "good bites" and was finished.

Sophia is in the CICU for the night and then will move to a normal room.

Thank you for your prayers! God heard them for we know that it was He who has worked all these things for Sophia's good. To Him be the glory!  We will update again tomorrow.