The Surgery

Now that we are home, I thought I would write a thorough post about the surgery that Judah had. It has been 10 months since the first cardiologist heard the continuous murmur near his spine. They caught it when they were checking out his heart murmur...not expecting to hear anything but the heart murmur. His heart checked out okay that day, but it disturbed the doctor that he could hear that continuous murmur so loudly. He thought it was an echo from the heart murmur...but when his partner listened and went further down Judah's spine the murmur got louder and louder. So we are so thankful for that innocent heart murmur that he was born with, because they never would have picked up on the spinal fistula (continuous murmur). This fistula happens to people, and then they die young (30's) of an enlarged heart. The heart can't handle the pressure from the blood flow, so it damages the heart. So after 1 cat-scan, and 2 MRI's...they found the problem. Judah had the first heart catheter in January, believing that they would fix it that day. The doctor then realized that the fistula was at his lumbar artery and she wouldn't touch it because it was not her area of expertise. That was a hard day for us...why God was our question. We couldn't figure out why it wasn't finished. But His ways are higher than our ways. We then got referred to the most awesome neurosurgeon radiology interventionist (we had to fight our insurance to get him because he was out of network). We heard his was a miracle worker, and he truly was. He was so patient and talked us through the whole process. So, on the 17th of June, Judah went under again and had the second surgery. It was a long 4 hours...it so hard to be on the other side waiting to hear any news. But the doctor was able to repair the fistula by putting 8 coils in to stop the continuous flow. The most awesome thing is that the doctor even said, "I wasn't expecting to do this in one surgery. It usually takes several." Praise God! This proves that God can do miracles through other ways. Sure, we would have loved to go in there and be told that it was gone and that God healed it. But it happened this way...God's hand was still all over it. He showed up again...He is so faithful...as always. We were home 24 hours later and he is doing really great. You would never know that he had a major procedure done the day before.
This has been a long journey. Lots of prayer...lots of faith. I fasted almost the entire 10 months, one whole meal a day for him...putting my faith into action. The journey built my faith up...because I know God could have healed him instantly...but He did it another way...just on a longer road, so that my faith and dependence on God grew stronger. In these situations you feel very alone...until you look up at Him and see His face shine down on you!

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