Aliyah - Upcoming Surgery

Please pray for Aliyah who will be having a planned surgery out-of-state at 7:30am (CST) on Friday, January 24th. Aliyah has had 2 long-lasting colds back-to-back, which cause a lot of mucus-management, breathing, and sleeping issues for her. She is still dealing with a significant amount of upper airway and throat congestion. She had a fever on December 31st and January 1st, but has been fever-free since then. The surgeon, whom we saw at a preliminary pre-op appointment last Wednesday, at a local hospital, felt the main risk for her was anesthesia. At his recommendation, Aliyah was assessed by an anesthesiologist that same day, who expressed that he would go ahead and do surgery if Aliyah was his patient, as long as her white blood cell count and chest X-Ray came back clear. These tests did come back clear, so we are still planning on flying out Tuesday morning. We do feel that she is improving...slowly. Her noisy breathing/stridor is a bit disconcerting. Again, the main risk is anesthesia. Being intubated could irritate her airway so much that she would have to remain intubated for awhile post-surgery. This means being on a ventilator. We DO NOT want this to happen! Please pray for a full recovery prior to surgery. Aliyah and I fly to Minnesota on January 21st and hope to return on January 26th. Randy will be taking time off work during our absence, with my mom as back-up. Also, please pray for Wenyan's emotional health while we're gone, as she has never been separated from me for more than a few hours since she joined our family at the end of July.