My first post starts in the middle of the beginning...chronogiclaly speaking. But on a more spiritual level, it's a pure beginning in every possible way. Dihye, in Mowogovol, my husband Longben's native Nigerian language, means "God's gift" or God's goodness." This was officially given by her grandmama after her birth. It has a lot of personal meaning to their family and I was delighted to add a traditional African name to the mix. But it was only until this weekend that I fully appreciated the meaning of her name for myself.
As most of you know my baby girl arrived 3 months early on March 12, 2006. She's been through a lot, which I'll get into later in "Backtrack" but the biggest being a tracheostomy that was performed in early May of 2006. She still has a trach and we feel it is one of the last of many hurdles of her being a preemie. The plan was always to do reconstructive surgery. The surgeon decided this would happen the end of 2006. We counted down the days as you can imagine. In November 06 she had a bronchoscopy in which they take a scope down the throat. The surgeon discovered that the scar had grown so much so that the trach tube was now her life line - there was no other way for her to breathe. Due to this unexpected development, our surgeon pushed the surgery until late summer of 2007. This was devastating news. We had so many plans surrounded around the fact that she wouldn't have a trach, and now...
Well we recently seeked a 2nd opinion, ideally a surgeon who could do the surgery sooner. The second opinion surgeon only crushed our spirits more by telling us that he saw some separate swelling in her throat that may be caused to acid reflux and may need surgery before the reconstructve surgery.
2 more surgeries! I was depressed to say the least, but this one was different from sadness in the past. I received a wonderful new year's gift from a friend. The DVD " The Secret." (Find it, watch it!) And since watching that I've been in high spirits about the future and what I want to happen. I even wrote it down. One of those things being the removal of her trach. So after this 2nd opinion news and after the boo-hooing I resolved that she may have this trach for awhile but I would dedicate the rest of my present time getting as much information so I could make the best decision for my daughter when the time comes. I joined two trach groups on yahoo, the best being tracheosomy_infants@yahoo.com and was already getting reading material.
We had a follow-up appointment last Friday with our trach surgeon. He told us that after viewing the CT scan that was done on Kaya just before our meeting he discovered that the scarring was not as significant as he thought. The width of the scar was indeed end to end of the trachea but the length of it was only 5 ml which meant they could do the surgery in April 2007. I was shocked, not only because this is the news I'd been waiting for but it occurred to me that I wrote something on my list of desires for the new year. It read "I want Kaya to breathe only by nose and mouth by April 2007." At the time I had no idea how it would happen, and I realize now that it's not my place to know how. That's THE SECRET to universe's goodness. It figures out the how, we just need to BELIEVE. I now know it's so appropriate for her name to be Dihye. She is absolutely the universes gift to us, 10 times...no, infinite times over.
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