Surgery #14...Keep Pushing Forward...leading to Surgery #15

Philippians 4:13- "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me"

Some things in life don't always go as we hope. Some times in life we take two steps forward and one step back. But why? I'm not sure. But God doesn't owe me any explaination. But it's up to me to get through it one step at a time whether it's forward or backwards or sideways or upside down. I have to keep persevering even when I feel like giving up.

On June 18th I went in for my 14th surgery. I was hoping it would be my last for quite a while. So we snapped a photo of me with my doctor (Dr. Dierks) expecting it to be our last surgery together. He's been with me for 15 years and watched me grow up and has done extraordinary work on me. It's been such a blessing to have the best doctor in the nation work on me and reconstruct everything to make it functional and look it's best.

Dr. Dierks and I

This surgery we were rebuilding my nose. Well completely constructing it from my rib cartilage. The goal was to recreate my nose and build it upwards. I had a deviated septum and couldn't fully breathe well. By building my nose up it would open the air passage more and allow me to breathe more fully as well as create a nose with a bridge. In order to this they cut an incision right below my right breast about an inch and a half long and went in and removed rib cartilage.

 At the end of each rib there is roughly 7-8cm of rib cartilage that attaches the bone to the sternum. My doctor was hoping to in and in a sense "hollow" out a strip of rib cartilage. Imagine taking a log and hollowing out the inside to make a canoe. He was hoping to do that for me, but unfortunately I didn't have enough rib cartilage for him to do that and construct my nose. Instead he took out the entire chunk of rib cartilage attached to my bone and half of another one. So currently I have a space between 2 rib bones and sternum which created a floating rib. He then took the strips of rib cartilage and put them into my nose to create a bridge and put a cast on the outside.

The pain levels of this surgery was one of the worst. The first thing that hurt the most was my ribs. I went into surgery at about 1pm and didn't wake up till around 5:30. My surgery lasted roughly 3 and a half hours. We got to stay in the huge rooms since my surgery was later and the day surgery rooms close sometime in the afternoon. Once I gained enough consciousness again I immediately felt pain in my ribs and was ranging between a 7-8 on the 1-10 pain scale. I was prescribed oxycodon every 4 hours for 3 days. I usually don't follow what is prescribed for pain meds because I hate having it in me and the way it makes me feel, but this one I had to follow and eventually eased myself off of it onto Vicodin and then onto ibuprofen after about 10 days. I'm still recovering now and will for the next 6 months to a year. Once my ribs started settling down from my pain, my nose started regaining feeling again and that was just as painful. Barely bumping it would ache. My bruising wasn't as bad as I had imagined. I mostly had bruising beneath my eyes spreading into my nose and one morning I was swollen under my eyes enough I couldn't open them enough to get contacts in. Swelling improved each day and eventually was all gone. 

My cast was to come off in 3-7 days and it took about 7 days until I finally got it all wet and peeled it off. It was either I take it off or my doctor takes it off the next day and I preferred taking it off myself.

On the 27th my mom and I went to Portland for my post-op appointment. My doctor wanted to see how my nose was healing and look inside of it and do all the check up stuff. He immediately wasn't happy with what he saw. He was pleased with the tip of my nose though which is said to be the hardest thing to create. As my mom calls it, it's a "cute" tip of my nose. What he was unpleased with the top of my nose closest to my eyes. At the top there is a bump which I thought was just a lot of swelling but it turns out to be the end of my rib cartilage poking into my skin. What happened was the straight piece of cartilage "warped" and bent upwards causing the end of the cartilage to poke out of nose and middle of it to be bent inwards.

Since I have a piece of cartilage poking into my skin and causing a bump in my nose, we have to go back in and get it fixed. We would like to have everything completed before I head off to college in August. As of now I have surgery 15 scheduled for August 6th. I go in on the 1st of August to see how much my swelling decreased and if the surgery is still necessary, but as the days go by the swelling is going down but the cartilage is still poking up. After 2 weeks though the cartilage has shifted more and moved around becoming a little straighter each day, but the cartilage isn't bending back down. We got the news and my mom was more bummed out than I was at first. I think because I hadn't fully processed what had just happened. It wasn't until we were walking out of the doctors office when it really hit me what was going on and what was about to happen...again.

I was being faced with another surgery that failed. I've experienced this once before 2 years ago when we first embarked on this specific adventure. The first bone graft we attempted had failed, and I had to process that one too. In hindsight to that surgery I concluded that God was pulling me back from a life that was moving at 90 miles per hour when I thought I had everything lined up and working for me. But he was showing me that I had to depend on him to get through everything. Since then I've kept that in mind. But this surgery I have no idea. But God doesn't owe me any explanation. The surgery 2 years ago was so difficult to get over, to move past that bump and the hole I felt like I sunk into when it failed and everything was on pause. Just when things were looking good again and the end of the road was just in sight, another wall stood in the way.

I shut down in the car when my mom and I drove home. I couldn't speak about it without feeling like tears were welling up into my eyes. To me another failed surgery isn't just about the surgery not working, it's looking ahead and seeing what I have to go through again. I was so excited about being done for at least a year or maybe even done for good heading into this last surgery. But God had other plans. I've tried to process what i'm going into again. The full course of a surgery. It's something I'm used to now and know the ropes pretty well, but each surgery is a little more draining than the last. Especially these last few surgeries since they are some huge ones. They are physically and emotionally draining. Since June 30, 2011 I have had a surgery nearly every 3-4 months which adds up to 6 surgeries in 2 years. So looking ahead to one more surgery within 6 weeks of the last one is exhausting just thinking about. We can question it over and over as to why this is happening to me again and ask "haven't I been through enough?" But what good does that do? It is what it is and I have to get through it. My mom and I have had a hard time getting through it all and processing it all. But she is amazing and said it's about perspective. People have it 10x worse than me, a cleft lip and palate can be a big deal if you compare it to a person who scraped a knee. But if I look at a dear friend of mine who is facing the beginning of fighting cancer, my cleft lip and palate is minuscule. It's something, but as a Christian God never gives us more than we can handle. Trusting Him will get me through this. It's not the end of the world, even though it may feel like it at times.

It's hard sometimes to stay composed and try to be the strongest I can be when an area of my life feels like it's falling apart and when crying feels like the most needed escape. My mom and I have walked through all of this together since day one. Her being a mom she feels the pain her kids go through and so if I break I'm afraid she will break even more. I've tried to stay composed and just battle through this, but sometimes it's ok just to break down and let it out. Everything in me doesn't want to do another surgery and go through it once more. But if this is what I have to go through once more to reach the end and as close to perfection with my final stage, then so be it. I will go through anything and repeat anything to finish off my mouth and nose. The end is coming, maybe not at my pace, but it is coming. And through this pain and extra surgery I believe God will do something great. 

One of my best friends told me it's unreasonable to say everything won't be ok because it will be in the end. God has never deserted me and won't start now. I'm exhausted of surgeries and just want to be done, but God has different plans for me and I'll be done on his timing. It's easy to say these things and I know I believe it and I know it's true, but I'm human and still fall into the darkness of failure and frustration with how all this is going. My mom said it's ok to be human at times especially one of these times. God doesn't expect us to be happy and cheerful all the time. There will be troubles in this world and we can express our pain, anger, frustration whatever it is, but we can't wallow in it for good. There comes a time when we have to pick ourselves up, wipe off our tears and step forward. 

On August 6th I will have to step forward and bring my journey to a close hopefully. As of now I have many dentist appointments from now until I leave to college to create my final set of teeth. Due to the lack of tissue in my upper jaw and not quite enough implants to support 5 teeth, we have decided to do semi permanent implants. It will be an appliance that will snap into my 3 implants and will clasp into a couple of my back molars. It will be removable every night for cleaning but sturdy enough to bite food like i've never been able to before. I have many molds, and fittings to get it perfect for me. It's an appliance that hopefully will never have to be fully replaced but maybe in the far future be adjusted or repaired a little. "Real" teeth are coming finally! 

As of now I am still recovering.  I have new floating ribs in my body when I lay down flat it causes pain as the rib is sticking up more and getting caught on the backside of my incision. I have dissolvable stitches inside of me that will eventually cause the scar to flatten out and get smaller. But the pain is much less now and muscle use is increasing daily. I can open a car door again :) My nose is doing much better as well, the swelling is getting less and less each day but full recovery of it won't be for 6-12 months. Especially since we have to go back in and fix it in August. The road of recovery is pretty smooth so far! Thank you for all the prayers! 

 

It's easy to get caught up in the negatives in life, and a lot harder to find the positives when things aren't going your way. But look here at me as a toddler who had my mouth wide open and not "normal" but that didn't stop me from being absolutely happy. Sometimes I wish I could be that happy child so easily again where the fears and the trials of life wouldn't drag me down and make me stop for a moment to really think if I want to be that happy. It's incredible to me to look back at how I was and look forward at how I am now.

Even though I don't have the most perfect nose in the world, I've come a long way since I was born. I have more things to be happy about in the world than the few imperfections and large bumps in the road. What ahead isn't the best, but it's not the worst either. I just have to keep pushing forward.

Thank you to all of you who continue to pray for me and walk along side me through this journey. I couldn't do it without you and your continuous prayer.

John 16:33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

-Katie