Hannah Update

Shalom everyone.

Hannah went into surgery on Tuesday, June 14th.  We showed up at the hospital at 6:00 am and went through the typical preparations:  registration, last-minute tests, and endless questions about allergies and medications.  Hannah changed into those famous hospital gowns, the kind that are always a bit drafty in back, and was given some Versed to calm her down.  Two hours later she was wheeled into the operating room.  Vickie and I said goodbye and, after a healthy dose of laughing gas (and the ensuing burst of giggling that erupted from my daughter), the procedure began.  The operating room team called us every hour with updates.  "Things are going fine."  "She is doing great."  "She is stable."  Easy for them to say.  It's not their daughter.

After six troubling hours Hannah was wheeled into recovery, then moved to CT for a scan, then sent to ICU which has become her home away from home for the next couple of weeks.  She has multiple small metal probes wrapped around parts of her brain.  These probes should delicately detect the slightest seizure which, in turn, should reveal which parts of her brain to remove during her next surgery, said surgery being about a week or so away.  

Words cannot adequately express my thoughts and emotions watching my daughter slumber fitfully after coming out of surgery.  Her eyes were heavy.  Her head was wrapped in a turban-like bandage covering the broken places in her skull where foreign plastic and metal probes monitored her every brain blip and wave.  I wanted to scoop her up like she was two years old again and hold her tightly, promising that dad would make the boo-boo go away.  But she's not two years old anymore and this was no simple boo-boo.  When did my liebchen become a young lady?  And when did the trauma and terror of life interfere with the warm and loving world that her mom and I tried to create for her?  

It's not even really about "fairness".  Is it "fair" for my princess to suffer as she is right now?  Is it "fair" for our family to be going through this during such a time of transition and change at home and work?  Is it "fair" for my three sons to feel a bit put-out because big sister is getting all of the attention?  As difficult as it is for us to accept sometimes life is rarely, if ever, "fair".  We roll with the punches and begin to learn that bad things happen to good people and good things often happen to bad.  But, if we are honest, even God isn't really "fair", is He?  I mean, really, is it "fair" that Y'shua (Jesus) should suffer and die for our sins?  Not really very fair to Y'shua, yet He willingly did it for all of us.

So I have stopped asking questions that often have no answers and instead am learning to accept, with God's grace, the full sphere of human experience, not just the good.  I don't know what will happen to my daughter Hannah but I do know this:  God, and God alone, is the only unchanging and certain thing in life.  Though He slay me yet will I trust in Him (Job 13:15).

I will keep you posted.