Good News

Today was a good news day, sort of. Many of you remember that last December Matthew had oral surgery, a triple frenectomy. (If not, you can read about it here.) He was told it wouldn’t be a big deal and that he’d up and running around later in the day. After the surgery, he was told “this is a very painful procedure—you’ll be on codeine for 3 to 4 days.” And, in fact, it was painful, especially when we discovered that because of Matt’s autism he doesn’t process pain killers normally. And not only did the codeine cocktail not totally knock him out, as the pharmacist claimed it would, it barely took the edge off the pain.

So with great trepidation Matt, Cal and I went to the surgeon to see if Matt needed more surgery. If he did, they’d need to do skin grafts, etc. And, in the meantime, Matt’s been pondering which was worse: donor skin (akin to becoming a zombie) or his own skin (meaning more slicing and dicing). Matt was sweet enough to volunteer for which ever was cheaper since insurance didn’t want to cover this because it was “oral” surgery.

Since December, Matt and I have careful inspections for his mouth. We both had decided he’d need more surgery. Last night, I spent part of the night praying for God to work this out, especially the finances. He’d always provided before, but...

After we arrived at the surgeon’s office, the nurse ushered us to the consulting suite. Matt waited in the chair, shivering. (It was very cold. They should have handed out blankets to the patients. I could have given Matt my sweater, but I was cold too. Besides it was way too girlie and he’d never have taken it.) The doctor came and examined Matt’s mouth. He told me to swab the sites twice a day with an antiseptic, healing rinse and bring Matt back in June. In other words, Matt dodged a speeding bullet, at least for now, and I learned a bit more faith.