Well, I mentioned before that Roman had a small bump on the bottom of his sternum. In May the Cardiologist said it was probably fine and that it was most likely just a funny healing of the bone because a wire snapped in the hospital immediately after his open heart surgery. He told me that if it doesn't bother him, it would be fine. So, basically just watch it.
Over the summer it changed from a bump to being more of a pointy, bowing out of his sternum.It didn't bother him, but it was starting to worry me a bit. After showing our dear friends (one's a doctor,) he said that we should get another x-ray because that is more than a bump. I immediately called and scheduled a follow up with the surgeon.
Within one week I was walking into the the hospital where Roman had his open heart surgery, almost eight months ago. I started getting very shaky and anxious. The whole place brought back all the memories and feelings of that two weeks we were in the hospital. I chatted and joked with the nurses and clerks to get my mind off of it as we checked in for x-rays and then upstairs in the pediatric cardiac unit. It helped a little and by the time the doctor walked in I was actually feeling better. He was being very gentle with me which made me think this was not good news. He explained first that the wire broke into two pieces. His body was rejecting the pieces as foreign objects and trying to push them out. There is some inflammation in the area that is pooching out. Then he told me that to fix it, it was just a small outpatient procedure to remove the wires, clean out the inflammation, and file down the bone a little. He said many times how sorry he was, and that he has never seen a wire break in two before. All I could think was, "Thank you, God, that they don't have to re-break the bone." That was my fear. I was imagining this wiggly little tornado that just learned to crawl having sternal precautions for eight weeks again.
I had even had a nightmare that when the doctor lifted his shirt to look at his chest he said, "Oh no, this is not good. He's retracting. He's going into hear failure again." So my subconscious thought this was going to be super bad news. And it was only mildy bad news. Right? I didn't cry. I just reassured the doctor that it was all fine and made plans to schedule wit his nurse this (if all goes as expected) day surgery in no particular rush because he said it wasn't urgent at all. We could even wait until Christmas break. We packed up the stroller and began the long walk back to our van in the parking garage.
On this long walk, I was giving Roman and myself a good pep talk. We can do this. It sounds scary, but it will all be fine in the end; we'll barely remember the hardship. It could have been much worse. This is a quick surgery, like the ear tubes. We can do this. And then it started to break down into, But I don't want to have to do this. I don't want to do this again. Then there were some tears. I didn't want to call anyone just yet, not even Brian. I just needed time to process. As we got to the roof of the parking garage, I had a missed call come through. It was our adoption attorney. I had been waiting to hear from him and so I stopped my dissolving pep talk and called him back. He needed our available dates for the finalization court date. That's super, happy news! This sweet guy that I love and care for, fret over, and have sacrificed so much for is finally going to be one hundred percent ours and truly be our Roman Gabriel Charles. God is so good.
Of course, this didn't make all things rainbows and roses, but it was a balm. We set the surgery for November 4th, and we'll be updating his Caring Bridge Site about all this in a much more timely fashion than this poor, neglected, struggling blog.
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