Hello everyone. I am finally feeling up to a blog post after months of quiet. It has been an exhausting summer. I know the thing that people are most interested in is how Lizzy is doing. The answer is: GREAT!! She really is doing great. Two weeks before school started we went back again to Iowa City. The neurosurgeon said she is looking good. He gave her the OK to swim and to run. He said she could go to school full day, but she can't carry a backpack:) (Her wonderful brother and sister share the task of that one). She still has to avoid too strenuous activities, lifting anything over five pounds, and playing on any playground equipment (swings, monkey bars, etc.), but the fact that she could run made her day. The difficult things are: no gymnastics (for how long we don't know), no trampoline (maybe never again), and no roller coasters (our family loves amusement parks).
This is Lizzy the day she got her stitches out---the last day to wear her bandages.
Here is Lizzy right after the bandages had been removed, before the stitches are out. Pretty impressive, eh? I forgot to count until they were out and I think there was about 28 stitches (I could still see the holes even after the stitches were out).
Here is Lizzy's scar today. Quite an improvement, yeah? No more Frankenstein. Here hair is growing in nicely, but I am not sure if there is always going to be a little bald spot right around the scar. Time will tell. The nice thing is her hair is long enough to hide it when she wants to, though she is more prone to be proud and show it off.
The real challenge of the day came as she got her brace for her scoliosis. Both she and I cried as the orthotist was trying to get it to fit just right. That thing is not the most comfortable thing and the initial thought of trying to wear it 14 hours a day, including sleeping, seemed all but impossible. It has been three weeks since then and Lizzy's dealing with it like a champ. We still have tears sometimes, but she is doing it! I feel like her attitude has changed so much through all of this. I have even wondered if it could be because of the physical changes fixing things inside her. Obviously it could just be she is totally awesome and has learned a lot from this trial, thanks to the Lord. We may never know. Either way it has been a great blessing to her and to us.
This is how Lizzy says she feels about her brace.
And the back. You will notice there are stickers on it. After the brutal morning of the brace fitting and then an incredibly long wait to see the orthopedic doc the receptionist took the time to talk to Lizzy and told her that next time she got a brace she might be able to get it in a different color and said that we could decorate with stickers. She gave Lizzy two to start her collection. Her kindness really made a difference for Lizzy that day.
See, she's still the same old Lizzy. It's not so bad.
