Latest on Skye

(This is one of my favorite pics of Skye-Baby and me being silly. Charlie Wear found it on one of my sites and placed it beside my bioblurb when he published When the Church is its Own Worst Enemy some time ago in Next-Wave. The contrast between that fairly serious article and the whimsy of this pic has always struck me as funny.)

I just realized that I haven’t really said much about who Skye is. Skye was born on May Day in 1998 and is our middle daughter. My good friends have heard me say a number of times that I think she is more emotionally mature than me (not that that’s saying much!)! She is absolutely one of the sweetest people that I have ever known. Unfailingly courteous, Skye is so thoughtful that parents have literally thanked Beth and me for allowing their children to play with Skye. Some years ago we noticed that Skye has a high degree of kinesthetic intelligence. She loves to dance, loves sports, and picks them up quickly. She’s extremely empathic and caring. Very sensitive.

I’m hoping this is my last update until Tuesday 12 Feb when Skye’s scheduled to have the stone removed from her left kidney.

Today Beth, Alia and I visited Dr. Roger Voigt, who is the Surgeon-in-Chief and Head of Pediatric Surgery at the University of Maryland Hospital, to get a second opinion on Skye’s overall kidney condition.

He’s in agreement (and we didn’t expect to hear otherwise) that the stone in her left kidney must come out now. He said that after the kidney heals we’ll need to test its functioning. He also said that the stone in the right kidney will also need to come out after the left kidney has healed (if it doesn’t pass on its own). He believes that its too dangerous to go after the stones in both kidneys at the same time. So it looks like we will be treating this situation for a while – perhaps months.

One concern that we had was Skye’s long-standing hydronephrosis (oversize kidney). He said the severity of that condition must always be evaluated in terms of its cause. i.e. it may be perfectly ok for a child to go for years and years with some degree of hydronephrosis. A historical obstruction may result in this condition for a very long while. We had been concerned about this but Dr Voigt’s comments allayed our concern somewhat.

So that’s the situation. Thank you all again for your many prayers, emails, phone calls, offers to help, etc.

I’ll post any big changes but now we are hoping to have a thoroughly uneventful restful weekend before Tuesday.

• first post on Skye
• second post on Skye
• third post on Skye