So the last time we chatted, our Gabe had a surgery looming. As we say in the South, a “big, honkin’ surgery.” We knew what we wanted to have happen…a graft to be taken from our Little Prince’s mouth {ouch} to build his urethra {as well as tubes placed in his ears for recurrent and terrible ear infections}, and a spica body cast to keep him completely immobile for the following two weeks to ensure the survival of said graft.

If you’re curious about the details of that day, you can get up to speed by reading here.

Suffice it to say, things went extraordinarily better than we could have ever hoped. The graft was taken, not from his mouth, but from his nether regions {best case scenario} and no cast was needed. We were floored. And we were devastated later that night when his urinary catheter slipped out and our Gabe endured the reinsertion of a new one in the ER of our children’s hospital.

It was completely unexpected by everyone involved that the surgery would be that great of a success. But it was somewhat expected that the graft would break down in some way or some point and that a hole {fistula} could make surgery #5 for our sweet boy a reality.

And that it did.

So this gorgeous boy,

with cinnamon roll icing on his sweet face,

will head back to the OR in a few months for what we expect is his last urological surgery.

But as I’ve said, it’s wise to expect the unexpected.

Whatever those details and plans will be, however they play out, we are grateful. To a team of brilliant pediatric urologists who have made life, “normal life,” much more possible for our beautiful boy. For family and friends who didn’t let his special need scare them and who came alongside us and said, “whatever he needs, we support you!” And for a God who knits these precious ones together…for His glory, and for our complete joy.

We’re so grateful for the whole of it.

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be the glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus, throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen.”
Ephesians 3:20