Grateful for Health

Maybe that title's a little misleading. I am grateful for my health but today, I'm more specifically grateful for my mom and her health. She has been really having a ton of back pain so she finally went in and got it checked. The doctor looked at everything and decided she needed to have surgery to get her 2,3,&4 vertebra fixed. They were squished and twisted. Monday for Family Night we went over and Jamison helped Dad administer to her. She went in for surgery on Tues. morning at 8:00. They finished up about 11-11:30ish. It was kind of lengthy! They put a screw in each vertebra, scraped stuff off and added stuff in. In the end it's all straight. Hurray!

She was doing ok. Loving the pain med drip! Wed. I talked to her and she told me that they had her up for a walk down the hall. I was so proud of her! She said she needed some pain meds after that but over all was doing ok. This morning however I received this email from my dad:

"Day 2 we knew would bbe more difficult than yesterday. The morning went well but after she got up and went for. A brief walk she realized that she really did have 6 screws, 2 rods and another support of some kind that the doctor put in to help keep her back straight plus about 6 inch cut upher back. She was not a happy camper!

Things became worse firming the afternoon when she developed a reaction to the blood transfusions they gave her. Her temperature went up to over 102 and she started to chill and shake. After acouple hours she stopped shaking and her tempture dropped. If this wasn't bad enough for her she developed a bad pain in the back of her knee. Fearing a blood clot they didn't give her the second unit of blood or have her get up for another walk. They did a lot of testing but we won't know untill in the morning. By 10 pm things settled down and she slept soundly until 10:50 when the alarm on the IV went off and they came in and changed the IV bag and took her vitals. Temp was down to 100.5 and she had little pain. She went right back to sleep.

It is now 12;50 am and she is still sleeping soundly.

I think that tomorrow will be a much better day for her. Plans are still to have her go to the Orchard Cove Orthopedic rehab center on Friday where she will.spend several days.

Thank you each for your calls and emails, concerns and prayers.

Hart "

Dad said that he was worried Mom was going to check out- she was so sick. Mom said that she has never had so much pain- not while giving birth, not while dealing with kidney stones. Gratefully today she is doing so much better. Tues. night the hospital was soooo noisy that she couldn't sleep, but it is much quieter so she was able to sleep. They didn't find a clot in her leg so they are relieved about that. She's been able to get up and down several times today all by herself. Dad stopped by this evening and said she is doing really well!

I'm so grateful! I love my mom and my dad. They are such wonderful examples to me!