I know that this post is so incredibly late, but I've been determined to at least post it all in the right month....so I have 45 minutes to reach that goal and it will be a few different posts. Wish me luck!
As we got close to her rod surgery, we had a lot of different things to get done. We needed some "before" pictures in which she turned into a "look at all the tricks I can do" photo shoot...
The left is her back in the beginning of May and the right was taken in November. Although the right picture is blurry you can see how drastic a difference it has made.
Kadence also developed an infection at two of her pin sites and it hurt her pretty bad. She said that it was a 6 on the pain scale and her highest up until that point was a 4 which only happened maybe twice. It was tender and gross and oozed nasty and actually got way worse than this picture. They tried an antibiotic ointment and then when that wasn't working they did an oral antibiotic. The surgeon wasn't too worried because he knew she only had a few days left in the halo.
The weekend before was extremely difficult for David and myself. We usually can go do fun activities as a family to spend some real quality time together and to distract all of us from the upcoming event. Unfortunately this wasn't the case. It also was bad timing because all of our visitors had tapered off since we had been in the hospital so long. It was rough. All we could think about was the surgery, all the risks, all the what ifs, etc. It was on our mind every second. Then we also had to try to fake being happy for the girls sake and that was extremely difficult. On Sunday we got a much needed visitor and it came as a huge surprise. Kathy Gambles came to see us. She came while David was out doing laundry at the Ronald McDonald House so he had to rush over to catch her in time. She brought them a book and read it to them in true Mrs Gambles form. She's the best at reading stories!
The girls were cozied up on Kadence's wheelchair and it was so precious.
Kadence got to show off all her tricks
Shelby put on a musical show while standing on her favorite purple hippo
She had the kindest things to say to us and it was exactly the boost we needed. I have a hard time taking compliments from her because I value her opinion so much. She is just one of those people that you couldn't find a negative thing about them if you tried. We love her to pieces and appreciated her visit more than she will ever know. We called and asked if Jeff could come help give all of us a blessing. Rachels family was heading down to distract us and so Aaron would be there. Rachel made us a yummy dinner which was great and the kids just played. We all had the opportunity to get a blessing and are so happy to have so many around us who honor the Priesthood and are willing to make the drive to help comfort and bless us. We spent the night watching a movie together and it was perfect.
Monday was when things got more serious. The xrays they got of her back weren't detailed enough in the neck so they sent us for more xrays
Love and support poured in for us in the form of texts, calls, facebook messages, etc. Mrs. Wright sent well wishes along with a picture of the class
Sarah, Emi and Lindsay posted this adorable picture on Facebook...
Everything was ready to go and her surgery time was scheduled for 10am. It was Davids night to stay with Kadence and he sent me this picture. She broke down in tears before she went to sleep because she was really scared. She had marker on her hand which she got on her face and when the tears hit it she looked like she had runny mascara.
We were as ready as we could be and were extremely hopeful and nervous. She hasn't had anything this major before but we knew in our hearts it was the right choice and the only one.
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