Behind every scar is a story of survival, resilience, and hopefully a lesson to carry with you in life ahead. Some scars tell of silly mistakes while others carry a gravity with them that let all around know that they are in the presence of a true survivor.
I have a small pock mark on the bridge of my nose, slightly off center between my eyes. I'm not really sure where it came from, but I have always had it for as long as I can remember. Perhaps a remnant of chicken pox when I was little? A reminder to me that sickness and discomfort will be a part of life, but they will not define life and will last only a short time. Then there's the small, slight discoloring on my inner knee from where I fell off the stairs and scraped my knee when I was young, a reminder to me that there's not much that a mom or dad's hug and kiss (and a band-aid) can't handle. I have the long scar on the front of my left knee from where the doctors removed a portion of my patellar tendon to reconstruct it to replace my ACL when I was 20, a reminder to me that one can in fact get around a college campus on crutches (and that sometimes things that are broken down and then rebuilt can be even stronger than their previous version). There's the almost now unnoticeable scar on my index finger from accidentally slicing it while I was in law school, from which I learned that one could in fact almost pass out from bleeding from a cut finger. My favorite scars of all are the stretch marks that now decorate my stomach from carrying my twins to full term. The stretch marks may not be beautiful by many standards, but they remind me that there are many things in this life worth sacrificing for those you love. On and on - so many scars, so many stories.
But all of these scars are nothing compared to Judson's. He has the mack daddy of them all, one that has not been won without much pain and discomfort: a six inch vertical scar in the center of his chest. He first received this scar from his first heart surgery at the tender age of five months old. The purpose of this first surgery was to increase the amount of oxygen that his body was receiving, and even immediately after I was amazed at the instant change of his coloring from a bit dusky to pink-cheeked and at how quickly he recovered. Even then we always knew that this was just the first of two surgeries, and ever since the second surgery loomed over us like a dark cloud.
With the passage of these past five years, his scar lightened from red to flesh colored, and the memories of the first surgery receded into our history. We were blessed with years of no major medical events associated with Judson and his heart. Judson of course does not remember any of it and could only vaguely discuss this first surgery based on stories we had told him about it. He did, however, know that there was this dark cloud that was always following him around - a future surgery and stay in the hospital. I don't think he even knew what "surgery" meant (other than he knew that I performed "surgery" on his doggy whenever there was a rip or a hole, which did not seem to be too bad for doggy), but whenever we would speak of it there was always a bit of concern and trepidation in his voice and on his face.
As it always does, time marched on, and before we knew it, we had arrived at the day of his second major heart surgery. We were scheduled for a Monday morning just this past week, so we sent the other two kids to stay with grandparents for a couple of nights. We arrived at the hospital well before sunrise on Monday morning and began waiting for our time for surgery. Unfortunately, there was a shortage of beds in the ICU, so we had a false start and had to return home that day. We took the opportunity to spend a little extra one-on-one time with Judson, taking him to breakfast on the way home.
He spent the rest of the day playing and watching Spider Man. We also learned from the hospital that our surgery had been rescheduled for the next day. We had rented an apartment near the hospital for a few nights (because parents are not allowed to stay overnight in the ICU), so we returned to Atlanta that afternoon so we could move into our temporary abode. Judson thought our seventh floor apartment with a city view was so cool, and instantly said it was our beach house. I'm not really sure of his logic, but we went along with it anyways. We took him out to dinner (at the only restaurant that was open in this once vibrant mixed-use community - thank you COVID). We did have an amazing view of the sunset (and the CDC) that night.
The next morning we repeated the process from the day before, and this time, the surgery was a go. We got him dressed in his gown and just waited until he was rolled back.
He wanted to be rolled back to the operating room to his song: "Eye of the Tiger." When the nurse called me to update me, she said that right before he went under anesthesia, he said to the room that he had "Spidey Sense," which of course they all loved. It was a long few hours that followed, during which I tried to think about anything other than what was happening to my sweet baby boy. Shortly after noon, we received word that the surgeon was finished and that Judson was being sewn back up. This was how I saw him when we were able to visit him in the ICU:
We were informed that the surgery had gone as well as it could have gone, and I noticed on his monitor that his oxygen was in the upper 90s, something that we had never seen before with Judson. He soon began to wake up more, and though I could tell he was in considerable pain, he continued to be so brave.
Thus began our long stay in the hospital. He was moved out of the ICU and into the step down unit the day after surgery, where he spent the next week. Each day he grew a little stronger and the drainage from his chest grew to be a little less. We spent our time watching movies (we had a Jurassic Park marathon on my watch, where we watched all five (yes, there are five) Jurassic Park movies), napping in Mom's lap, petting Uno and Olaf (the pet therapy dogs at the hospital), walking around the hospital (or sometimes being pulled in a wagon), playing with all of the cool toys that we were given, and of course talking with all of the amazing nurses, doctors and other staff that were on parade in our room throughout each day.
Meanwhile, back on the home front, Tony and I had been alternating between being at the hospital with Judson and being a single parent at home with the other two, which was also not an easy job.
Judson was finally cleared to come home one week after the procedure, and he was so happy to finally be back home...and to get to see his sister and brother again. His lips are redder than we've seen them, and he's doing great (and catching up on all the sleep he lost while in the hospital).
To say the least, we were all ecstatic to be reunited at home and to see the gray cloud that had been hovering overhead start to dissipate at last. As always, we were more than blessed by family and friends praying for us and checking in on us. The overwhelming feeling that I have felt throughout all of this is gratitude: gratitude for the doctors, nurses and hospital staff who were so kind to us, gratitude that there are such smart people in the world who could come up with these types of procedures for all of the children like Judson in the world, gratitude for the relative health that we all enjoy in comparison to so many others who were staying in that hospital with us and have yet to return home, gratitude for so many ways in which God showered his kindness upon us. As one of Judson's favorite songs says, "I see the evidence of your goodness all over my life."
As for Judson's scar, it is now dark red again, and there are a few more scars near by to go with it. I know soon it will start to fade away again, but I pray that it will always be a reminder to Judson and to all of us of the many ways in which God has been good to us...and that Judson will see it and remember that he is a fighter with the eye of the tiger who will rise up to the challenge of his rivals...with the help of his spidey sense too, of course.
