Familiar Frustration With Fatigue, Feedings and Failure.

I am consumed with the "F" words today.

Amy and I spent the afternoon with her surgeon, asking questions to which we sadly already knew the answers.

It's apparent that our plan to diagnose Amy's long term pain hasn't worked. Today the surgeon agreed.

He removed the gastric tube which for months now has been a source of additional pain for Amy. It was amazing how quickly it came out...I wasn't even able to make a "Pop!" sound with my index finger and my cheek in time.

There's a lesson there I suppose... the root of many pains are often easily removed...once you find them.

Unfortunately, that was only the source of Amy's most recent pain....her long term agony has not subsided.

So now she will spend a few days healing, and then go back to being fed through a central line. The upside is that for a few days at least she will be completely unfettered from formula and feedbags.

There is a downside too.

This is a long road and it has now brought us face to face with the familiar and the frightening... the operating room.

Amy will undergo major gastric "revision" surgery within the next two weeks. This is not something that was entirely unexpected, although we had certainly hoped to avoid it.

It is risky...more risky than any surgery Amy has endured thus far, and we are both fatigued and frustrated. There is a sense of resignation as well.

But this is where the path has taken us...even when we've retraced our steps we have returned to this spot.

So we will cast the other "F" words aside and fall back on the one that has been stout and steadfast.

The one on which we have relied upon the most.

The one that has yet to fail us.

We will have faith.