Merry Christmas... Jesus is the reason for the season!!!!

Merry Christmas to all of you beautiful people! We hope this letter finds you happy, healthy & truly enjoying the Christmas season! This year has been a tough one for Michael &I filled with many trials & tribulations, but we have also been very blessed in the last few months. In November of last year, I was bending over to get some clothes &heard a pop, which was instantly followed by excruciating pain in my back &down my leg. We spent the next 10 months traveling to countless doctors that all had their own opinion of what was wrong, but nothing seemed to truly fit the problem. They could all agree that I was definitely dealing with nerve pain, but no one could figure out why since the MRI that was done in February came out clear. In the meantime, we tried every kind of treatment possible from physical therapy &acupuncture to medications & injections galore. Unfortunately, nothing provided long term relief. My quality of life began to deteriorate dramatically as I was rapidly cutting back on everything that increased my pain level. I couldn’t go to church anymore, riding in the car was extremely difficult, I couldn’t make dinner for my family, or walk more than a block without sitting down. Even with my previous back pain, Michael &I were always on the go visiting family or going to movie or concerts & suddenly that all stopped. With everything that we have been through over the years, this problem was the first thing that has ever put real strain on our marriage. Michael desperately wanted his wife back &I wanted to give that to him, but couldn’t with how bad the pain was. Thankfully, our pastor recommended reading the Love & Respect book by Emerson & our lives instantly began to change. We got our priorities straightened out & made God number one again. We started making time for each other even if that meant just doing something special at home together. We began doing our own devotionals to get back in the word as well as a reading our devotional together as a couple. It was during this time that we really started to seek God’s direction with this back pain. We knew He had a reason for it, but we didn’t know how to proceed. Should we wait on Him for a miracle or be more aggressive with the doctors’ to run more tests!?! We had an appointment scheduled on Sept. 4th with my pain clinic & both felt that this was going to be our sign from God. If the appointment went bad & they continued to brush me off, then we were going to wait on the Lord for a miraculous healing. If the appointment went well, then we wanted them to agree that all the diagnoses didn’t make sense & that more testing was needed. We were completely blown away when the assistant not only agreed with us that the previous diagnoses didn’t make sense, but she also recommended finding a new spine specialist & having more testing done. We left there praising God the whole way home. The next step was finding the doctor that God wanted me to see, so Michael put out some feelers at his men’s group & one of the guys had worked with a great surgeon in the cities. That was enough of a sign for us. My appointment with him was on Oct. 9th & we had to wait 2 hours before we could see him, but it was well worth the wait. He took one look at my MRI & said that 2 of my discs were extremely abnormal. None of my previous doctors had ever mentioned that before. He said that a test called a Discogram would show us if those discs were causing my problem, but he warned me that the test was extremely painful. At that point, we didn’t feel that we had a choice. We had to do the test to know for sure what was causing all of this pain. I had the test the following week & the doctor didn’t lie. It was awful & I wouldn’t recommend it to my worst enemy, but my discs were both extremely bad. The radiologist would put the dye into my disc & it would leak out before he could get the x-ray taken, so he said I definitely needed surgery. Finally, we had our answer! I called my spine doctor the next day to make my follow up appointment & they miraculously had an opening for the next day. Otherwise, I would have had to wait until December just to see him to setup the surgery. God is amazing! I needed to have an anterior/posterior fusion. They would remove the bad discs through my tummy & place bone into the empty spaces as well as placing a cage over everything to keep it in place. Then they would go through my back to pack in some more bone as well as getting the rods & screws in place to keep everything together until my back has a chance to fuse, which usually takes 3 months. I don’t have insurance & there were several things that had to be paid before I could schedule the surgery. Thankfully, we had just enough money in Michael’s IRA to cover the Discogram, the surgeon’s fees & my back brace. Everyone else involved said that they could be paid after the surgery was over! Praise God! I had my surgery on Nov. 19th & I was in the operating room for about 4 hours. My surgeon said that the discs were really bad. It was almost bone on bone, so I actually grew an inch taller because they had to open up the spaces to put the bone in! How sweet is that! When I woke up, I knew instantly that the surgery had worked because my leg pain was gone. I blew all of my nurses away when I walked the halls less than 24 hours after surgery. I was in the hospital from Monday to Friday & then we began the journey of healing at home. I used a walker to get around for the first 2 weeks, but then I was stable enough to get around without it. My back had 17 staples in it & they were able to come out on Nov. 30th. Right now, I am walking 20 min. 3 times a day, which would have been impossible before surgery. The remaining bills have arrived & we are planning a benefit sometime in 2013. If you would like more information about that, please email me at carey@lpasupport.com. God has been so good to us & we are excited to see what life will be like once I have healed from my surgery! We are so looking forward to a life with potentially no pain & possibly making some babies in the future too!  The rest of the family is doing well! Michael has been such as amazing husband through all of this & I cannot put into words how much he means to me! My mom had a little scare with breast cancer right before my surgery, but we just got awesome news that she is cancer free! Jeremy is keeping busy with work & even playing nurse to his sister. I think he likes it, but he will never admit it. The Lord has really moved mountains for us & it has been so cool to witness! We pray that God will move in your lives this holiday season &that you all have a very Merry Christmas & a happy new year! Love, Michael, Carey &Snickers too!