Off To The Mayo Clinic Again

Yesterday's report from Charlene:

Charlene sent the following to her prayer list this morning. It is much better than what I could have reported, so here it is in full:

We had a full day at Mayo yesterday --- saw the plastic surgeon and neurosurgeon; very impressed with both.

The surgery will be much longer than what we were first told ---- at least 10-hrs. The growth on her face is filled with nonfunctional brain matter and the doc assures us there is no danger in removing it from the rest of the brain and said not to be scared about it (easy for him to say :). The neurosurgeon's part will only take about 1 1/2 hrs; the rest will be 8 or more hrs.

The more the plastic surgeon told us, the more I thought, "poor Magalie".
They will take a part of her rib to form a ridge for her new nose, because it will then grow with her. They will use some kind of thin wire to pull her 2 eyes closer together. Amazingly, all the plates and wires they use will ultimately be absorbed by her body. And there are more parts to the surgery, but those are the biggies. He said the main pain following surgery will come from the rib area; minimal pain will be in the head area, for which we are very thankful. I said, "I bet she will
feel like a truck hit her" and he said probably not.

The plastic surgeon said she will have a scar going down the ridge of her nose, but he hopes everything else will be close to normal. Getting the eyes to be the exact same level is tricky but possible and he will do his best. There are so many outcomes from the surgery that will depend on how well her little body heals.

She was a trooper for the 5 hrs we were there --- no surprise. She is an amazing little girl. No whining. Again, she stole the hearts of everyone she came in contact with. Pauline is the woman who has coordinated all the appts. When they phoned her to tell her Magalie was in the office, she said, "Is my baby here?" She'd been eager to meet her. Magalie took to her right away, especially after Pauline carried
her to the break room to a table ladened with Christmas cookies. She took her to every work cubicle she could find to show her off. Fun to watch and great that Magalie "performed" with cute smiles and hand waves.

We travel back down to Rochester late this afternoon in the snow storm to spend the night. She has a CAT scan at 8:30 in the AM (they'll have to sedate her) and then 2 more dr appts. Surgery will probably be around 6AM Fri. What a long-g-g day that will be.

Things have gone so very, very well. Please continue to pray for her these next days. I have no doubt she will continue to be a trooper. It will be hard letting her go to surgery.

Blessings on you all. Charlene

Magalie's mom & friends

Here is a picture of Magalie's mom, MarieRose (on the right), and Roberta.




And another with Magalie's friend Kim Meredith who flew from Haiti to Minnesota with her and Charlene.


Today was an uneventful day. Got out and did some shopping, picked up David who thinks Magalie is soooo special, went to dinner at Subway with David and his dad. They were going on to see a play - "Cinderella." Next appointment at Mayo is 11:00 Tuesday.

KSTP

Magalie and her friends from KSTP, channel 5, Tim and Kevin. Check out their story at http://kstp.com/news/stories/s1280263.shtml.

Magalie's New Friends

Magalie makes new friends wherever she goes.

Marie B, our interpreter.


She thinks her sunglasses are so funny.



Dr. Bibovic, the geneticist.

New Info

This morning, Charlene and Magalie took off for Rochester on thier own. Alex has an appointment this afternoon and I need to be here to get him to it. Magalie was not able to eat anything solid because they are putting her to sleep to do an MRI. Apparently that is standard procedure, but it makes us nervous because it was the anesthesia the hospital mentioned in conjunction with all the bad things that could happen (paperwork written by their lawyers, I am sure, but no less scary). As I write this Magalie is in the MRI and it will be another hour before she is recovered.

Also, we learned yesterday that what we have been calling a tumor is actually part of her brain protruding beyond the cranium. That makes me much more nervous about the surgery than I was. Please keep this little girl in your prayers.

Magalie Meets New Folks

Yesterday Magalie got to hang with Stacy Sikes for a bit. Stacy directs the House of Compassion in Rochester (http://rochesterchurchofchrist.org/hoc.html) and serves as a Chaplian for the hospitals there. It was Stacy who first directed Charlene to a doctor at Mayo, who directed her to someone else who directed her to someone else (you get the picture). We spent the night with the Sykes Monday night and he helped us get to our appointments Tuesday.

Magalie and Charlene filling out paperwork.

Magalie the TV star

Right now we are at the Starbucks in the Barnes and Noble in the Rochester Mall. it doesn't get much better than that. Magalie is napping, Charlene is reading, and I am blogging. We have second and third appointments this afternoon. This morning we met the primary care doc, a pediatrician named Dr. Phil Fischer (photo on the left).

Magalie was on local channel 5 Sunday night. Since then every time we go out someone will say, "We saw you on TV." It's a wonderful conversation starter. You can see the short version at http://kstp.com/news/stories/s1280263.shtml. They plan to post the longer version later in the week. When I catch it, I will let you know by posting the link here.