Walking in faith

We are still reeling from all that has happened in the last week and a half.  Falling in love with our baby girl more and more every day.

We had her followup appointment with the Pediatric Neurosurgeon today at Texas Children's Hospital.  As I mentioned in my last post, Christyana was born with Hydrocephalus.  Don't worry, I didn't know what that was either.  It is the buildup of fluid inside the skull leading to brain swelling.  It is caused by a problem with the flow of cerebrospinal fluid.  This fluid brings nutrients to the brain and flushes out waste from the brain while also acting as a cushion.  The fluid typically moves through openings called ventricles and then is reabsorbed into the bloodstream.  Because she was born with a ventricle bleed on the brain, the blood clot essentially blocked one of these ventricles so there was nowhere for the spinal fluid to go.  So the fluid collects and puts pressure on the brain which can lead to various levels of brain damage.  The most common treatment is to have a shunt placed in the head that acts as a drain and carries the excess brain fluid to another area of the body to be absorbed.  In Christyana's case they installed a shunt which carries the fluid through a tube to her abdominal area (not the stomach, though) where it is reabsorbed into the body.

So that is all I am going to say about the scientific/medical mumbo jumbo.  In researching this condition, we have found that the prognosis varies.  It is pretty much a roll of the dice if you speak to the medical profession...

Here are my thoughts on that...First, I serve an amazing God.  He knew this little girl before she was conceived.  He knew every moment of that pregnancy.  He knew right when her brain would begin to bleed and her head fill with fluid.  He knew that modern medicine could be a tool he would use to spare this little girl's life.  He knew the exact moment he would place her in a home and who her parents would be.  He already knows every moment of her life.  She is fearfully and wonderfully made.  I don't, for a moment, believe that He has done all of this so that she would merely be a statistic or a simple case study.  She was created for a purpose.  She was created to bring honor and glory to her Creator.

As new parents (well sort of new, we have two other children) it would be so easy to hear the medical song and dance and be very downtrodden.  It is so easy to be distracted by the waves as Peter was.  It is easy to become hopeless.  Praise God, He is far more mighty than I.  He, who spoke the world into being, can handle this.  He can handle and equip us to handle any challenge that comes of this.  We can rest in the knowledge that God is Sovereign.  It is in that Sovereignty that we can have peace.

So one doctor's appointment down...a lifetime to go...

Soli Deo Gloria!!!