Finally a date for Sierra's Surgery

Well we officially have a date for surgery. She will be having 2 surgeries instead of one because her back is so curved to one side they will need to go into the front and then again into her back to put the rod in her back. She will be having the first surgery on April 28th and the 2nd one will be on May 5th. Due to the length between surgeries she will probably be in the hospital for 2 weeks or longer and she will be at Kosair.

She went to Dr. Boone's(cardiologist) office today to do a check up prior to surgery and he said her heart was doing great so this is one last thing to think about. She also got her braces off today which was the highlight of her day! This isn't something I want to see happen, I wish I could change it somehow take it all away so she never had to go through surgery again but its not in my hands but in God's. I am terrified but yet I know that God has always taken care of her.....somehow we will get through this. It's a time such as this that I find myself taking stock of my life and praying that what terrible things I have done He will forgive me for so that it doesn't cause her to have a bad time of it. Yet, I also know that it doesn't work that way and I guess my wrongs don't cause her life to be in turmoil but I am only human and cannot help think that way!

She is very adamant about her desire to go down to our future home and stay during her recovery...actually it wouldn't be just for her recovery I would imagine her and I would just go ahead and move but I fear being so far away from Kosair so I dunno what to do. I cannot see her going down there until she is at least on the mend but we will just wait and see. Of course this means she has less than 3 wks left of school now so she is always excited to get out of school..haha

Well that's it for now I will write more later. Take care! Kellie

My sad moments......

I was on you tube tonight looking at a video of a laproscopic gastric bypass. After I watched it I start looking at all of the other surgery type videos and came across this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmvJ4sFxz54&mode=related&search= don't click on that yet til you know what it is. This is a video of one girl's story about having spine surgery to correct scoliosis.

Sometimes I do think it's good to see what someone else has gone through before a person goes through the same thing themselves because it does prepare you. I cried watching this video because I know Sierra is going to have to go through this soon and its going to be so hard for her. I thought open heart surgery was bad but this is real bad, its not like open heart surgery where she went back to school in 6 wks. It's an entire lifestyle change, its something that just won't heal in a short amount of time it will take 6 to 8 mos. to heal. This girl in the story had surgery 4 mos. ago and is still out of school. My heart hurts for Sierra, I want to cry just thinking of the suffering she will have to go through. I also want to prepare her but yet I don't want to scare her.

I know that alot of non-believers would wonder why does she have to suffer so much and blame God. I don't understand why she has to suffer so much but I know it's not God's wishes for her to suffer, on the contrary God wants to show us a miracle and I know that He has showed us miracles over and over again in our lives. I am thankful for those miracles..... some people go through life in such a hurry or with such unbelief that they never see a miracle but if you slow down and take the time to look you will see miracles happening all around you. I do know that God will get us through this just like He always has but I also know it's alright to be afraid and sad because someone I love has to suffer through something like this.

Well, I had the Splenic artery Aneurysm taken care of through an abdominal angiogram this past Thursday and I came home from the hospital Friday. Thursday was a horrible day, I didn't think a person could stand so much pain but with God by my side I made it through. Friday I felt great so they let me go home and since then I have spent most of the weekend in bed. My feeling great day was just an illusion because I have felt horrible since that day. If it wasn't for good pain killers and sleep I'd surely be back in the hospital.

Hubby called the doctor last night and he said unless my pain was over a "10" there would be no sense in going to the hospital because all they would do is watch me...which makes sense. The problem I have is how am I suppose to know what a "10" is, is it his "10" that he's talking about or is there this general concensious what a "10" should feel like? I threw up a few times yesterday and am unable to eat but its a good thing that I have some phenagran on hand or I'd not be able to stand it. So is a "10" without medicine or with it? I cannot imagine it without it because even with medicine it hurts just to breathe. Oh well, tomorrow I go back to the doctor so I guess I will just sleep until then. I did get up and take a shower, drank some sprite, and took my meds so as I wait for them to kick in I thought I'd take some time and write.

They say this was a major surgery even though I was not opened up, it lasted 4 hrs. and they put 23 coils in the aneurysm to hold it...the doctor thinks that the reason I have so much pain is that the spleen is slowly starting to die off now. Splenic Artery Aneurysm is a very rare thing, I've been searching the internet to find info but there is not alot out there. The only reason mine was found is because they were looking for something else on a cat scan. If you ever suffer from left side abdomen pain please have it checked out....if the aneurysm burst before it was repair a person could bleed to death in a very short amount of time. I am so thankful that they found it.

According to what I have learned a Splenic Artery Aneurysm only affects about 1% of the worlds population and women are at greater risk than men are. In most cases finding the aneurysm before it burst is considered an incidental finding, where it is found only when a doctor is doing a cat scan to find something else and happens upon the aneurysm. Because the spleen holds such large amounts of blood people die fairly quickly if it ruptures before it is treated. So you can see why I would thank God for this because had it not been for other things there is no telling how long I would have gone on this way or whether it would have ruptured or something. I have been so blessed to see so many miracles in my life and this is one of them!

Surgery day.....

Well I was rescheduled last Friday for my surgery on the anyeresum in the artery leading to my spleen. It was rescheduled for tomorrow - Thursday the 9th. I have to be at the hospital at 6am...boy I hate mornings! The good news is that maybe I will finally get a cortizone shot in my knee and be able to walk better and I will be able to sleep in a bed for a change! After my hospital stay last month I have been favoring my right leg and in the last week or two I have now damaged my knee. I have bad knees and ever so often I need a cortisone injection so the good news is I will probably get one in the hospital....yay!

Since I will be out of comission when Sierra starts school we went to walmart today to get school supplies and we got her hair cut at the hair salon in the store....We spent 5 hrs. in Walmart...5 hrs! Can you even imagine? I felt like I should have been paid I was there so long. Of course you think I'd have bought the store but I didn't we'll have to go back as soon as it gets cool and get clothes for winter....maybe by then I will have won the lottery and I can just have the store come to me instead like all the rich people do...hahaha

Its funny I don't have the foresight to be worried about this surgery I mean I just don't think of it as that serious but my family seems to think so. I realize that God is always with me and He is watching over me every second of every day and if its my time to go then only He knows. So in case God does call me home I love you all...my family and my friends and we'll party when ya'll get to heaven.

Oh and I have to use this blog as my confessional too..... I have to confess something really terrible I did. I use to work for Zayre's many, many years ago and back then whenever we had mismatched shoes in the shoe department we would just send them back and the shoe company would give us credit for it. Well fast forward to many years later and I have to admit I am a thief.... I bought some shoes in two different sizes but I only bought the one set and left the store with mismatched shoes!! Ok, so I still believed then that they truly turned them back in to get credit for them. So today I am in the store buying more shoes and this time I was buying two sets in two different sizes so I could make one set to fit my uneven feet and I ask the clerk if they sent their shoes back if someone bought a mismatched pair...she said, "no ma'am we don't, we consider that stealing!" Talk about feeling like a heal!(no pun intended) So I admit I stole something once and I'm very, very sorry....lol Now if I were Catholic and ya'll were priest I guess I'd be truly confessing but thank God, He is good and I don't have to ask anyone to forgive my sin but God....heck I didn't even have to tell anyone!

Well I am off to get ready for bed, 5am comes awful early....Please keep me in your prayers and I will be hollering at ya'll when I am feeling better!

Peace out!

Back to the hospital again.

Well, I went to the doctor today and he scheduled me for surgery on Aug. 3 (the day after tomorrow!) to have the anyeresum in the artery leading to my spleen taken out. He seemed to think it would be it wouldn't be a difficult procedure so I am thankful for that. I should only be in the hospital a couple days. I hope that anyone reading this would keep me in their prayers...and thanks so much for doing so. Will update more later.

Sometimes you can't make sense of things....

Sierra had a spine doctor appointment today and it was not good. We knew from her x-rays she had that she had a 25% curvature to the spine so my thoughts were just hoping they wouldn't have to put her in a brace. Well it was worse than expected...the x-rays were not a full spine xray so you couldn't really see the larger curvature so they took a full body one in the office....she has a 27% upper curvature and and 43% lower curvature... the first words out of the doctors...well the nurse practiciners mouth was, "she's got to have surgery" well this just blew me for a loop....sigh I wasn't expecting this, she wasn't expecting this, heck nobody was expecting this.

The nurse then said maybe I better talk to a doctor and they brought the doc in and he agreed so now Sierra has to have an MRI done because they need to make sure of what is going on etc... Sometimes things just don't make sense! It was bad enough that she had all the heart problems and then loosing her eyesight for awhile, then the siezures, the stroke, the thumb defect, the low motor skills and low muscle tone...etc... I remember saying I wonder how much worse can it get when we found out about the seizures. I'm a christian, I believe in God, there is just no questions that run through my mind that start with, "why God..." but there is just a "why?" question but then I know that it's not God's doings, its the devil's.... somewhere in the back of my mind I can picture God and the devil having a conversation where the devil has some scheme up his sleeve to test our faith...I'm sure its got to do with some big movie theatrics but then I see God over there smoothing it over, I believe that behind the scenes what we don't see is what is horrible actually isn't as bad as the devil had planned it because God intervened. I believe that no matter how bad it looks from our end what we aren't seeing is the damage that was overted because God changed something for the better. I have to believe this and I know this because I know that the devil cannot stand the rock hard faith Sierra has in God.

She makes me stronger and more faithful and I hope she does everyone else who is hurting over this latest news because, she is such an example. She showed me today that it doesn't do any good to focus on the big thing but to tackle the small things first... in her mind it was more upsetting that she would have to forego eating for 8 hrs. in order to have this MRI then the fact that she would have to have surgery. Was she upset? yes but she focused on tackling the smaller problem first...maybe this is how we get through, one thing at a time, one day at a time.