The sun comes up, it’s a new day dawning;
It’s time to sing Your song again.
Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me,
Let me be singing when the evening comes.
This describes pretty well the feelings of coworkers Jonas, Petra and myself this early morning as we were driving to hospital for Lawik’s surgery. Lawik and his mother were becoming such dear friends to us in the last three weeks, all that time we spent together with them in our house. Lawik’s mom, who loves to make jokes with and about all of us volunteers, called me often Lawik’s second mother and that’s how I felt when our little boy went into his surgery this morning. We arrived just when they took him into the preparation room, so I could kiss his hands and pray for him before he left. I can’t imagine how hard it had to be for his mom, as it already broke my heart to see this little boy go.
In the surgery today the doctors planned to put a band around his pulmonary artery in preparation for his big surgery to switch his arteries. It was supposed to only take two to three hours, so when I looked at my phone and saw that he was already more than four hours in the OR, I started to become more and more nervous. His mother was, thank God, able to sleep a few hours. I was sitting next to her, praying for our little boy as the time was passing by.
After five and a half hours, we got the message from his surgeon that Lawik is not very stable and we became even more worried about him. When his mom woke up shortly afterwards and asked if Lawik was back in his room, I had to tell her this hard news. She first didn’t realize it, but then burst into tears. We encouraged her, prayed with her and for her, while she was looking again and again through the doors leading to the OR. After six and a half hours we finally heard the relieving news: Lawik is back in his room and is stable for now!
Later the surgeon told us that they decided in the surgery to also create a BT shunt added to the pulmonary artery band. This is a big change in the circulation of the blood which was hard for Lawik’s weak heart to handle. They needed to give his body a lot of time to adjust to the new situation and to react to the medicine they gave him to stabilize him. They decided to leave his chest open to be able to react faster in case he deteriorates and maybe they will leave it open until he gets his switch surgery. This wasn’t easy news but his mother took it very well: “for now the time to worry is over and next time we pray that God will have mercy on him.” She kept thanking and praising God and that’s what we want to do at the end of this day.
I was listening to the song 10,000 reasons a few times during the waiting time. One line says:
“For all Your goodness I will keep on singing,
Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find.“
It was hard to see my little boy that I just had in my arms yesterday now lying in his ICU bed with an open chest but still there are enough reasons to thank God for! Thank you Lord for protecting Lawik today. Thank you that he can be here in Israel and for all the doctors and nurses at Sheba! Thank you for his wonderful mother! Please bless her and Lawik and heal our little baby! Thank you that he is in your hands!