Thank you to everyone who has been praying for my niece Masen! Her surgery to replace her failed cochlear implant was yesterday – it was scheduled to begin at 1:30pm, but was delayed until 4:00pm due to an emergency surgery ahead of hers.

Praise the Lord!
*The surgery was faster and less intense than expected – Masen’s skull had not formed over the original plate in her head, so the surgeon could just pull it out and insert the new one rather than having to drill. (he said he had never seen another one like this – praise God!)
*The surgeon was able to re-use the suture lines that he had made the first time, which he thinks will reduce the pain she experiences.
*He also said that when he pulled the old one out of her cochlea and slipped the new one it, it went right in without any trouble at all. He said that he only has about 8 minutes to do that part, because once the old one has been removed, the tissue inside the cochlea rapidly fills the void, making it very difficult to get the new one placed. But it went quickly and easily.
*Masen was able to go home late last night to a room full of balloons. :) My sister said she just said, “Wow, that’s a lot of balloons!” when they went into her room and she promptly fell asleep holding all of the strings in her hand!

Keep praying…
*They are hoping to be able to turn her Cochlear implant on in 2 weeks, assuming there are no problems with swelling. Please pray that it works (they were unable to test it after the surgery because the audiologists had gone home for the evening)! The family is also praying that this implant will allow her to hear even better than her first one.
*Continue to pray for her as she recovers – that her pain would be well controlled and that she has no problems with infection.

I’ll update more in coming days…