Author's Note:
Recluse... this is for you :)
"So what does this mean?" Lena asked, her face filled with worry as she tried to follow the doctor's words.
"We will need to perform plastic surgery to clear up his face." The doctor confirmed. "There was too much damage from all the glass and even though we can stitch each one up his face will always have the marks."
"So what exactly will you do to fix that?" Stef asked, speaking up for the first time since the doctor had walked in. "What scars will be left from the surgery?"
"We will cut his skin at his hairline and basically pull it away from his face." The doctor explained making both Stef and Lena cringe glad that they had moved out of Marina's room to talk. "Using his own skin we will then graft new skin and attach it to the edges of his face and it will grow to basically make a new layer of skin over the muscle and tissue and that's what causes the difference in the face."
"And there will be no scarring?" Lena confirmed.
"Very slight, at the hairline but it won't be clearly visible." The doctor confirmed.
"But his face will be different." Lena tried to wrap her mind around it all.
"He will not look like he does now." The doctor admitted. "It will be very close but still, it will be different."
"And how long will it take?" Stef asked. "Giving him a new face?"
"Well, we would need at least a week to graft enough skin to cover his face and the surgery would take maybe five or six hours, a couple more depending on how clean a cut we get considering the damage and recovery could be anywhere from two weeks to six months."
"Six months?" Stef and Lena asked in unison. "Why such a gap?" Stef questioned.
"It all depends on how his body reacts to the new skin." The doctor explained. "It will be grafted from his own skin so rejection should be minimal but still, sometimes the body reacts unexpectedly." He paused a moment for them to process before continuing. "Once one layer had attached well we will just have to wait until we can take the bandages off but if that first layer takes time to attach or doesn't attach entirely then we will have to repeat the process."
"From scratch?" Lena asked.
"Depends on how much doesn't attach." The doctor answered. "If it's a small amount we can work around it but if it's over twenty-five percent then it's easier and less time-consuming to just begin again." He said.
"And what if we choose not to do this?" Stef questioned.
"He will look like before only will several tiny marks on the right side of his face." The doctor answered. "They will fade over time but they will always be visible."
"But it will be his face." Lena confirmed. "The one we all know."
"Yes." The doctor admitted. "But he will always look like he was in an accident."
Stef and Lena both looked at each other wondering how they were supposed to make this decision without having any time to think about it and consider all the possibilities. What would Jesus prefer? Is it fair to make this decision for him and what if they choose the wrong one? What if, a few years down the line, once they all get over this incident, Jesus wished he had a clear face, or on the other hand what if he is never able to look at himself in the mirror again because he can't recognize who he sees.
"What if we wait?" Stef asked, thinking that maybe they all needed some time to just take a breath and give Jesus a chance to decide.
"His skin will heal and we'll have to do it all over again." The doctor answered. "Right now a lot of the skin is already off so it's easier to remove it. Waiting means adding even more scars around the edges."
Stef and Lena both looked overwhelmed, trying to figure out what was best for their son. For the second time in a year they were faced with he decision of having to choose a surgery that could fix everything or cause even more problems and neither one of them felt comfortable making the choice.
"I'll give you some time to think about this." The doctor said kindly. "If you have any other questions there's anything you need to clear up just ask a nurse to call for me."
Stef and Lena nodded and smiled slightly in thanks as they walked towards two empty seats to talk. However, before they made it even a few steps the doctor stopped them.
"I'm very good at my job and whatever you decide, I promise I will do the best that I can however I do recommend the surgery because he's young and he has his whole life to live and it may be a lot asking him to bare so many scars on his face for the rest of his life." He said sincerely.
And with that the decision had basically been made. There was no way Stef and Lena were going to force their son to go though life having to explain why more than half his face looked like he'd done a really bad job shaving.
"So he won't be Jesus?" Mariana asked in horror.
"He will always be Jesus." Stef said firmly. "Who his is isn't going to change."
Stef and Lena had finally made the decision after nearly five hours of listing all the pros and cons. Jesus' reports had been sent to a hospital in Philadelphia where the number one surgeon worked and he had recommended the same procedure and finally they had just had to accept that it was what they needed to do.
The two moms had gathered the kids in Mariana's room and explained what was about to happen and each child seemed completely uncertain of what it meant to have 'a new face'.
"The doctor is going to come and show us some photographs of people who have had this surgery and how different they look." Lena explained to her daughter.
And as if on cue the door opened and the doctor walked in with a folder in his hands.
"They do look remarkably similar." Lena said as she looked over the pictures closely. "It's almost impossible to tell there's a difference."
"It looks like the photos may have been taken a couple of years apart." Stef agreed, feeling more comfortable with their choice after having seen some of these pictures.
"Maybe they can get rid of his unibrow for good." Mariana suggested, trying to find the silver lining in this situation.
"Yeah, and his nose is just a little bit crooked, anything you can do about that?" Callie added, going along with Mariana's method of trying to cope.
The two shared a small laugh before glancing back at the photographs, trying to imagine what Jesus might look like after the surgery.
"They are remarkably similar." The doctor agreed, breaking the family of their conversation. "But I must warn you... when it's your face or the face of someone close to you, even the slightest change is huge." He said, hoping they understand the gravity of his words. "The difference will seem much grater than with people you don't know."
"What exactly does that mean?" Stef asked, suddenly nervous again.
"It's going to be a huge adjustment for all of you." The doctor explained. "Each time you look at him, you will be taken aback and in most cases the patient, and sometimes family members, struggle psychologically. It takes a lot of getting used to." He warned.
"But you still think this is the best course of action?" Lena confirmed skeptically.
"I do." The doctor said seriously. "The adjustments will be the same - getting used to the scars could be just as traumatizing as the grafting. Everyone who knows him now will see the difference either way. The difference is that the people he meets in the future will only know him as the new face. They won't have reason to ask question whereas with the scars he may spend the rest of his life explaining the accident."
What the doctor said made complete sense however it did nothing to make the family's decision any less nerve-wracking. They glanced around at each, all looking to see if anyone had any objection before Stef turned to the doctor.
"Do it." She finally said, speaking for them all.