Another three-in-one Surgery for Monika

I already started telling you yesterday that Monika has had her third surgery! It has been completed successfully and she is recovering at a guest house near the hospital in Gurgaon, a suburb of Delhi.

I had told you already in January that we were going to the hospital with her. We went and returned without having anything done, as she had got fever in the night and an infection in her respiratory system which made the anesthetist decide not to risk anything with a surgery.

So we had brought her back home and gave her time to recover. It was a persistent infection however and took long to fully heal. It was about the same time that my father’s surgery was decided when Monika was fully healthy again. The waiting list for plastic surgery is obviously fuller than the one for knee replacements and so Monika got an appointment later in the past week.

She was of course excited when she came to the hospital: the doctors were going to work on her mouth so that she would be able to open it fully again! And they wanted to work on her right eye once more, as she could still not close it completely, in spite of the past surgery in December 2014 for the same eye.

We were there when she went into the operation theatre and of course also when she returned – and we were surprised to see her bandage: it didn't only cover her right eye and her lower jaw but also went around her complete neck and upper chest! Had they worked on her neck again?

Yes, they had! In a discussion on short notice, the surgeons had decided that they would make another release cut, skin transplant and graft for her neck while they were already working on her mouth! She had grown a lot since her first surgery and one could see that it was pulling her chin down again!

So it was a three-in-one surgery and it will of course take time to recover! They released her quickly though, as they will open the bandage and change the dressing only in a few days. As before, Monika is thus staying in a guesthouse close-by together with her mother. We will go and visit on our next trip to Delhi – and I am sure we will find this brave girl eager to start the next steps of her healing process!

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