Tomorrow we travel to Shriner's Hospital in Houston, where Kinnley will begin the long journey of correcting her feet. The entire process will take about five months, and include at least two surgeries. We've talked to Kinnley about it quite a bit. She says she wants to have straight feet. Her special request (which I will pass along to the doctors tomorrow) is to have all five toes sit nicely beside each other. Right now, her middle toe sits slightly below the others. When we paint her toenails, her third little toe invariably gets smeared. She really doesn't like this and asked that they fix those toes specifically.
Tonight, Kinnley said she was scared. We talked about how long she would wear her casts and how straight her feet would be afterwards, and tried to reassure her that everything would be fine. We talked about how fun it would be to get to pick out the color of her casts, etc. I gave her a thorough bath and hair washing, but let her play in the tub as long as she liked. After all, it will be five months before she can freely splash about in the tub! About an hour later, a wrinkly and pruned toed little girl emerged from the bathroom. :) Kinnley asked her sisters to come with us to Houston, and then crawled into Lainie's twin bed to sleep with her tonight. I suppose that speaks volumes as to their bonding. When Kinnley is nervous, she wants all her cheerleaders next to her. And we absolutely will be!
Up until now, I've been able to put the medical process out of my mind. But it hit me like a ton of bricks today. I wish I could take this on for her, to take her place in those casts, and later in surgery. This is the hard part of being a parent, seeing your child go through challenges that are beyond their control, and ones they themselves did not create. My heart breaks to think she went through the first surgeries in China all by herself. She has memories of that time. We promised her that she will never be alone like that again. Kinnley is a trooper, and a survivor. But she is also just a little girl of eight years old who has been through more than any child should. It doesn't seem "fair" that she have to go through more. But in the end, we knew this was coming and are thankful that there are medical facilities to help her. I recognize that there are always other people that have much more to endure. So I just ask for God's grace to get us through this situation, the situation that He blessed us with. To Him be the glory.
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