Seeing, Believing

Many of you who know us know that Hannah has an issue with her eye muscles. The actual ailment has a medical name that even on my best day I could not pronounce properly. We learned about this around a year and a half ago. After visiting some doctors the specific issue was identified. At the end of 2012, Hannah began wearing eyeglasses, pink and round. We also began patching one of her eyes a few hours each day in hopes of correcting the eye muscle problem. We did all this knowing full well our efforts may or may not work and that an outcome of this effort might still be surgery to correct the eye muscle problem. Surgery on the eyes of a three year girl, especially our three year old, was something that made us pause to hope and pray that it would not ever come to that point.

We tried the glasses and we tried the patching. We made visits to her doctor so he could check her progress. This past fall, the doctor determined that some progress had been made but that surgery would be necessary.

On a recent Friday, we rose early and carried Hannah to Children’s Hospital, just picked her up out of bed, pajamas and all, and took her to the designated meeting place. We signed forms, we followed directions and we moved from room to room when asked. We trusted medical personnel to administer medicine to Hannah to prep her for the surgery. We talked to the surgeon who reassured us the risk was minimal and that this surgery was a necessary step to help Hannah with her eyes. We watched Hannah turn a bit goofy from her medicine and then into an irritated little girl while we waited and waited and waited for our turn to arrive. And when that time came, we handed her over to these people to do what we could not do for her but would do in a heartbeat if there was a way possible. At that time we, as parents, took a healthy dose of faith and trust understanding how sometimes we have to step out of the way to have someone more qualified do what we need done for our child even when she is just three years old and more precious to us than life.

The surgery went as expected. Now we wait. We wait for Hannah to heal and we wait for Hannah’s brain and eyes to work together to work as they should.

Eyes played an important part in this day and the days leading into this one day. And for all those whose eyes helped us through that day, thanks.

It was the eyes of Hannah’s daycare teacher, Myra, who first noted the eye problem and made us aware of it.

It was the eyes of the eye doctors and their staff who patiently worked with a testy two year old who became a still-testy three year old along the way and then worked with her antsy parents to determine a path of treatment.

It was the eyes of an eye surgeon and a crew of others working with him at different stages who used their eyes to guide their talents to do what needed to be done to make this surgery happen, even using those eyes at times to read a little girl’s face and the faces of her concerned parents to provide needed comfort or reassurance.

It was the eyes of family and friends who bowed heads and closed eyes and said a prayer to see us all through and then when the surgery was over with those same eyes, now open, looked upward to thank God.

We don’t know if the surgery will do what is needed. Another surgery may be possible. We have to wait and at a later time a determination will take place. The stressful part is over for now. For now we can take a deep breath and exhale. The night after the surgery, my wife asked me to grill some burgers for our dinner. In spite of the cold weather, I fired up our grill and cooked them. I stood outside in the darkness during the grilling and in a quiet moment I heard voices. Almost immediately I knew those voices were coming from inside our house and that they belonged to Hannah and her mom. I

knew this because I recognized how Hannah said “Momma”. I think I could pick out that one word spoken by that one little girl in a noisy room anywhere. When I turned around Hannah and her mom were looking out a window at me. And it was just like in the movies except this was real. Our eyes met, smiles stretched across our faces and the realization dawned that what we have here together-good, bad, and, at times like we had just faced-even trying-is what matters and goes beyond what we can see and what we believe and into what we know, what we really know.