Friday morning surgery

Autumn will be having a 3rd surgery at 7:30a.m. in the morning. The neurosurgeon said the apnea could be caused from 3 things. #1 it could be that her shunt is not working correctly but they did an CT scan this morning to check and it is working fine. #2 that it is caused from the Chiarii II malformation and #3 that she just has a bad brainstem. So, really our only options right now is try to do the decompression surgery and hope that helps with the Chiarii malformation or to go ahead and do a tracheotomy on her, The doctors said the tracheotomy is complicated to take care of and we would have a week or 2 of training to make sure we can care for it and once she gets it she could have it all of her life or maybe a minimum of 2 years. So, they want to try the decompression surgery first just to see if it will work before having to do the tracheotomy. If the decompression does not stop her apnea episodes then we know it is because she has a bad brainstem and there is no cure for that--just to treat the symptoms which would be to do the tracheotomy so she can breathe on her own and go home. We asked how common it is for spina bifida patients to have these Chiarii complications and they said less than 10% have problems so Autumn really has a bad case of spina bifida and they said they only have about 1 to 2 cases a year with children having problems with the Chiarii malformation. They said if the decompression works then we will be here a minimum of 1-3 weeks but if it does not work then we are probably looking at being here a minimum of like 6-8 more weeks. So, please be praying this will work because we can not imagine how we are going to do this for another 6-8 weeks!!! I will say the doctors know there is a chance for this surgery to work or they would not be doing it but they are not very hopeful that it will make a difference--they are doing it so there is not a what if question later and to try to avoid doing a tracheotomy on Autumn. Also, they decided to go ahead and give Autumn a blood transfusion this evening before her surgery tomorrow. We did find out she is A positive so that means I should be able to donate blood for her in the future if she needs it but James can not since he is B positive. Well, the news we received today was not too hopeful so we are praying God really steps in to heal Autumn so we will not have to go to option B after this surgery. Also, the doctors could not tell us what brain damage she may have as she gets older or if she will even have any. They still have not been able to tell us the extent of her nerve damage but did say they had not seen much hip motion out of her. She does pull her knees up towards her body but when you stroke her left foot she does not curl her toes like she is suppose to. I think it hit both James and I today that this is going to be a long road and things are more serious than we first expected them to be. This is the toughest thing we have ever had to go through but I know God is making us stronger as a couple and as individuals. I love my husband and feel so much closer to him more today than I ever have before. We are dealing with the most stressful situation we will probably ever go through and instead of getting stressed at each other we have pulled together to truly work as a team and rely on each other. God gave me an awesome man to love and I feel blessed that we are going through all of this together. Please pray,pray,pray tomorrow morning and the next several days that we see God's hands taking care of our baby girl and see improvements so we can tell of His glory in our lives and be together as a family finally.