No Surgery

Hello all!

I thought I better update you friends on our situation with my seven year old daughter’s upcoming foot surgery. In case the details are fuzzy, here’s the quick long rundown:

In October she got a splinter in her foot from sliding down in our hallway–in sock feet even. Evidently there was a slivered section in our wood floor–argh! I got out an immense one-inch sliver here at home, and took her to the doctor to have him dig around for the rest of it. He thought he got it all. About a month later, she developed two purplish cysts further down on the bottom of her foot. So back to the doctor we went. Second painful experience with the doctor. He lanced the cysts and drained them, didn’t see anything to worry about. Hmm.

When the cysts refilled, we took her two different places. First to a podiatrist who ran a lot of expensive tests. A sonogram finally showed us that she still had over an inch long splinter in her foot. He recommended surgery.

For a more natural approach, we went to a Chiropractor who practices applied kinesiology and prescribes nutritional whole food supplement regimens. She assured us over and over that leaving the splinter in would be no big deal. It was walled off, encapsulated in the cysts, and this doc thought our daughter’s body was putting up a big enough fight against it on her own. So she put our daughter on a rigorous nutritional supplement routine to build her immune system up.

Still, that’s one big splinter and we weren’t feeling led strongly either way. So we kept asking for our friends and family to pray for wisdom and scheduled the surgery eight weeks out. Buying decision making time, essentially. I kept thinking about how sometimes you just have to step out and trust God to shut the door if you’re making the wrong move.

So this last Tuesday we had our second pre-op appointment, this time with the podiatrist. He went over the what-to-expects of surgery and we left feeling very unsettled. First, he didn’t think the hospital would allow one of us to stay with our daughter during surgery. Ha. Did they really think they could keep us out? Yeah right. Second, the anesthesia plan was to use general anesthesia, which means the whole tube in her throat route and someone pumping oxygen into her at the bedside. Oh, and he kept emphasizing that we would have no idea how she would react to the anesthetic, and talked about the possibility of death…right in front of our 7 year old!

Now, hubby was really getting second thoughts. Of the two of us, he’d been more inclined to choosing surgery. So he lined me out to make several phone calls to “trusted medical” friends…translated: they have the same natural philosophy that we do, while yet being well versed in the medical field. These people all advised us against surgery. They felt the scar tissue and nerve damage weren’t worth the risk, especially as the splinter isn’t causing our daughter any pain whatsoever.

So we’re following their advice. One of them was the MD that delivered our first two girls. She left the family practice clinic to pursue alternative health. Would you believe that she told me a story of a girl who stepped on a toothpick, and after digging around on the girl’s foot a few times, they decided to let it be. A few months passed and the toothpick worked its way out the top of the girl’s foot.

Thank you all for your prayers and for all your previous comments and emails concerning our daughter’s situation. We’d appreciate continued prayers for protection and eventual resolution of this stubborn splinter!