Still Holding Out Hope

We saw a new Dr. yesterday and this one does ankle replacement surgery. Unfortunately Heidi isn't a candidate for the surgery. Since she had such a bad infection they can't do that type of surgery, it adds to many foreign objects into her body and her body will fight them off naturally thinking it is another infection. There is just too high of risk that she would lose her foot to the infection.

He did give us a few other ideas to try before fusing her ankle. He was a really nice Dr. and he took the time to talk and discuss it with us. One procedure would be braces and we are looking into that option. That would give her some pain relief and allow her a few more years (hopefully) before the ankle fusion. The other option he talked about is a procedure done by a Dr. in Portland and it is called distraction. I have had much chance to investigate it yet and we aren't sure she could do that because of the infections, again. If this is possible it would give her another few years before fusion.

We have another Dr. appointment on Friday with another new Dr. for another opinion. We will see what he says also. We also see the wound specialist tomorrow and we have Physical therapy today and Friday. Basically we spend a lot of our time in the Dr. offices.

Last night we went to Open house for High School and Heidi is looking forward to going back to school and being with her friends next fall. Emma also is looking forward to school and starting Kindergarten. I must admit that I am looking forward to having a break from them both.LOL Hopefully I can get my daycare back up and running by Aug. We shall see. You can't run a daycare if your not ever home so I need to get PT and Dr. appointments back to normal and reasonable amounts first.

we are still trying to be upbeat and hopeful that all this is going to work out okay and we try to throw a little fun into the mix, tonight I think we are going to dye Easter Eggs.

This is the before shot

This is the before shot of my scrapbook room. SEE THE BOW IN THE SHELF. I am not normally a claustrophobic person, but this mess has me afraid that it will all come falling down on my poor body while I scrap. If this happens they would never find my body. It takes me hours to accomplish anything, because although it looks like it should be in order it isn't and I have no idea where anything is.

Last week I took everything thing out of here. Well everything on this side of the room. The other side of the room where the computer is, is so frightening that my camera ran away and hid when I tried to take a photo of it. It is under a bed somewhere quaking in fear still. Anyway, so I took everything out of here and put it in my living room, and my kitchen/ dining area and my bedroom. I had stuff every where, it looked like the Wal-mart toy department on the day after Thanksgiving. So piece by piece I went through it all. I had piles, and they were labeled with unusual names like :

1. you'll never use me so give me away
2. throw me in the garbage and put me out of my misery
3. what in the heck were you thinking when you bought me
4. I know I'm never going to get scrapped, but I am so dang cute please keep me
5. definitely put me back in that room, I am worth what you paid for me

So I had my piles and I sorted everything into these said piles and put only the stuff in the last two piles in a pile to go back into the room.

Well I wanted to get it painted and put new floors down and add shelving to one wall, but all those things cost money. So I put it to a vote and my family chose food over my new scrap space, and that is the problem with Democracy.

So I put everything back in the room that belongs in there and I have a kitchen table full of stuff for craigslist and ebay, and I figure when it all sells I can buy paint and get the room painted.

New Layout

Here is a new layout I made the other night. I just need to get some photos of my friends to put on it. Hopefully next time we go to lunch or something I can remember my camera.

Making Spring Arrive

I want spring to get here so badly. I hope that it is on it's way. I found this picture holder at Target on clearance and Emma used my Silhouette to make all the butterflies and Flowers. It turned out really cute and adds a bit of spring to our house. We are planning on changing it with each season/ holiday. It will be a really fun decor for our home.

Update on Heidi

Last week we got a hard blow from the Dr. Heidi went in on Friday and the Dr. told us that coming up soon he wants to remove the hardware that is still in her foot. Then he talked about fusing her ankle. If this happens, her ankle joint will no longer move at all. She will be permanently disabled and unable to move her foot. This also leads to arthritis and knee and hip issues and all that kind of stuff later on. It left me very discouraged and depressed and Heidi was hopelessly depressed and worried about doing things normal teens do, like walking, riding bikes, learning to drive a car.

So Monday we went to wound clinic and her wound is looking worst, not better. So they took x-rays and blood work. They called later that day to let us know that the wound is again infected. So she is back on antibiotics and yogurt (her least favorite food now).

Last night Heidi came to Greg and I will an article off the Internet about artificial joints for ankles. The article was in a European Medical Journal and she asked if London was to far to go to fix her leg. Well that not only broke my heart, but it got us all searching the Internet and finding out more information about this procedure. We found some information about a Dr. in San Diego that does it and we are going to call him on Monday and see what we can do as options before we fuse that bone. There has to be another choice out there and this gives us all a bit of hope.

Well anyone that knows our family knows we are all overweight and this is a problem for all of us, but more so for Heidi, because she could loose that foot to diabetes or other health issues. We as a family decided we need to change, our eating habits and exercise habits and all that stuff. We set attainable goals and we are going to help each other reach them. At first the goal might only be to walk to the corner and back, but if we do that then later it can be to walk around the block. We are going to eat better and healthier and I (as the mom) am going to quit taking the easy road (McDonald's drive thru) and cook meals. IF we all work together I know we can do this.

It gives us hope again and it gives us something to do, and to work towards. I will update this as soon as I can talk to a Dr. or someone that can help us. Our Dr. has been great, but he hasn't left us with any choices, so we are going to look for them ourselves.

March Calendar Kit

Here is a look at the March page for the Calendar kit. It turned out pretty cute, but paper piecing all the lions and lambs became rather tedious. I just have to finish making up the kits and they will be ready to go in the mail. Yeah!