A rough day at the playground

A really big ouch!

Yesterday Philip fell hard at the playground and tore a gash in his eyelid. Philip is very stoic usually and never cries even though his days consist of rough and tumble play, so I knew right away that something was wrong when I heard his cries!

Sure enough, he had a pretty wide tear on his eyelid that needed a trip to the hospital for some stitches. Our sweet boy scars very easily as evidenced by his last lip and nose revision, and so we knew we needed a plastic surgeon to stitch him up. Thankfully one was available. Philip has looked more scarred and disfigured since that last surgery - so much so that it still leaves a sinking feeling in mine and Kevin's stomach when we see before and after pictures of our precious son's face.

God blessed Philip with an absolutely handsome, beautiful face. His scarring, however, keeps getting worse and worse as time goes by - even drawing up his lip. I have recently gotten the names of plastic surgeons and a new cranio-facial team to check out a second opinion of what can be done to help lessen his scarring. When I brought up how unhappy we were with the outcome of Philip's lip and nose revision surgery, our doctor flippantly said, "Oh well, that may just have to be one of the disappointments in life!" That doctor feels that function comes before appearance. We believe that they go hand-in-hand when dealing with children with cleft lips and palates. We want to give Philip the biggest chance of being the least disfigured that we can. We only wish his doctor felt that way, too.

I shared this with the plastic surgeon from last night's hospital visit, and frankly, he was shocked that our doctor had said that. Last night's doctor feels the way we do - that we should take into account both function and appearance in helping our children with cleft lips. Kids can be so mean on the playground, at school, at church, etc., as they get older. Helping Philip be less scarred is important. Last night's doctor gave us three names of cranio-facial and plastic surgeons he feels are top-notch. The only catch - they live in Chicago, and we are in Indiana. Yikes! That would be a lot of driving for all of the appointments we will need throughout his life.

Will you pray with us as we seek God's direction in all of this? He knows who we should see. God even loves Philip more than we do, and He has his back. We will rest in that knowledge as we seek out further treatment for our amazing little son.