Eye of the Storm
A show of solidarity
Robbis Storm

A former Lampasan, Robbis Storm is a world traveler and restaurateur. He can be contacted via e-mail at RStorm453@aol.com.

I'm thinking about shaving my head.

Now why would a 63-year-old man -- who's already practically bald -- think about removing what little hair he has left? Why indeed?

We'll discuss it in a minute, but first let's talk about Thanksgiving Day. The thing is it came early this year. Tuesday, Oct. 2, to be exact. Let me tell you about it.

For months now, Miriam and I have been on edge, anticipating some severely invasive surgery on Sarah Vondran, our beautiful and precious 34-month-old granddaughter.

There's no reason to keep you in suspense. The operation went well. The procedures seem to have been totally successful. Sarah's prognosis is completely positive. That's why I'm calling it Thanksgiving Day!

But -- and this is a big but -- the stress has been terrible. Miriam and I have been keyed up. Nervous. On pins and needles. On high alert -- sometimes almost sleepless. Thank God most of that's over.

Pardon me a second, while I throw some medical jargon at you. Words like "premature ossification," "craniosynostosis," "cranial vault remodeling," and "split rib grafting." On second thought, I'll use my own words and my own understanding to tell you what our little Sarah has been through.

Sarah Vondran and her father share near-matched heads. He shaved his after surgery forced his daughter's hair to be shaved off.

When most of us are born, the bones in our skulls are separated by flexible sutures that allow for growth and expansion as our brain develops. Sometime after our brain reaches its full size, these sutures harden so that these separate bones fuse together to form our adult skull.

But here's what happened with Sarah. When she was born, the sutures had already fused together. In order to give her rapidly developing brain room to grow -- at the tender age of 12 weeks -- surgeons had to open up her cranium with a front-to-back cut. The procedure worked for a while, but it wasn't enough.

For some six months, the family has known that an additional operation would be necessary. That knowledge has been hard for everyone in the family.

Put yourself in our place: Here's this two-year-old, so smart, so sweet, and so full of energy. Here's this innocent child, so trusting and loving. Here's this beautiful little girl who looks up at you with joy and wonder in her clear, blue eyes. Here's your youngest granddaughter.

Every time you play house with her and her big sister Emma. Every time you read them a story. Every time you play a waltz on the piano and watch them dance. Every time you interact with her in the slight- est little way -- it's in the back of your mind. You can't forget it. You can't forget that they'll soon open her chest and slice bone material from her floating ribs.

You can't forget they'll shave off her lovely, golden blonde locks. You can't forget they'll peel back her scalp, saw open her skull, and graft the harvested rib material into the opening in a sort of a jigsaw puzzle pattern.

The idea is that in time the grafted bone material will then grow together and give her something closer to a normal skull.

Your intellect tells you, you shouldn't worry -- after all, these doctors are some of the best in the country. This procedure has been done many times. Not to mention that Sarah's mother, our daughter Kim, is an registered nurse, a certified pediatric nurse who has years of experience.

For almost three years Miriam and I have watched Kim and Ronnie manage the near impossible: giving both Sarah and 4- year-old Emma a life experience so close to "normal" that few onlookers would know that Sarah has been watched like a hawk to prevent serious brain damage the whole of her precious short life.

Our little Sarah could not be in better hands! So intellectually, you know not to worry. So you don't worry. Right?

Wrong! Emotionally, you're a nervous wreck. You can't relax. You find yourself sweating. Your heart's in your throat. From time to time you feel yourself shudder. You don't want to say what's on your mind, but you can't keep yourself from thinking "What if they find something they don't expect? What if there's a slip? What if something goes wrong?"

Well -- nothing went wrong. Let me shout that: NOTHING WENT WRONG! The operation was a success. When we got to see her, she looked swollen, bruised, and subdued. But the bottom line is this -- she's fine. In fact she's back home now, happy to be in her familiar surroundings.

I don't have words enough to tell you how relieved we are. We're simply elated. We both feel like this tremendous weight has been removed. We can breathe now. We can finally sleep without nightmares.

One reason we can sleep without worry is that Kim has stayed with her virtually every minute of the day, spending every night at the foot of Sarah's hospital bed. Seeing them together, you know what mother/daughter bonding is all about.

And Sarah's father? Well -- the next time Sarah saw her father, his head looked just like hers. Ronnie, as a show of solidarity, had shaved his head. Like father, like daughter. It makes a beautiful picture.

Think I should join them?