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!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

 

Well, it’s Christmastime again & that means another holiday letter from the Granica’s. It has been a very tough year for a lot of people & we have had our share of suffering as we said good-bye to four loved ones that will not soon be forgotten. February 7^th will be one day that we will never forget as that was the day that Michael’s dad suffered a heart attack. The doctors felt that they could repair this heart, but we would learn in the days that followed that he had suffered too much brain damage to ever recover. On February 10^th, we walked with dad to the gates of Heaven & said that we would see him later. It has been one of the hardest things that we have experienced in our young married, but God’s amazing love & grace has pulled us through. We often struggle to understand what God is doing & why He allows these trials to take place, but He has a purpose for everything that happens to us whether we can see it or not. We don’t understand why God called so many of our loved ones home to be with Him, but He’s been teaching us so much over the last year & we really want to share it with you. We hope that our experiences will inspire & challenge you this holiday season. Michael & I have had our eyes opened to what is truly important in this life. We were meant to love one another, to have intimate relationships with our Heavenly Father & we have fallen short of our calling. God wants to know us & for us to know him the same way we know our parents & they know us. He wants us to tell him about our day, to bring Him our burdens & share our praises. God wants us to create loving relationships with our families & to cherish the time that we have together. As a society, we have gotten far too busy & often times we take our loved ones for granted. We plan to spend more time with them tomorrow or next week, but it’s a vicious cycle that can leave us with guilt & regret. Now, I know what you are thinking because I used to think the same thing. You are thinking that dad was almost 70 years old & you have a lot more time before you need to get right with God or to catch up with your family, but a few years ago we had a family friend that was killed in a car accident & he was only in his 40s. Life is so short & we hope you will cherish it, especially during Christmas time. We also want to challenge you to do something positive for your fellowman even if it’s as simple as saying hello to a stranger on the street or shoveling a neighbor’s driveway. If everyone did something positive for someone else, our world would be a much nicer place for our children.

With that, we will leave you to enjoy this holiday season by wishing you a very

Merry Christmas & a happy new year!

 

Been A Rough Year

Good After family and friends.
I apologize for not posting more frequently but this has been a very difficult year.
We got into the new year ok with our new puggle puppy snickers but by the end of january things started going bad.
Carey lost a very close friend, she was her adopted grandma and has know her for about 25 years. We went to the memorial service for her and I was able to see lots of pictures of Carey and Jeremy as kids. After the service Carey and I were talking and I made the comment that we shouldn't have any more deaths in the family for a while. Well that comment jinxed us because not even one week later my dad has a severe heart attach while at dialysis. After great care by the luther hospital staff it was determined that dad had sustained severe brain damage and there was nothing more that could be done. So on February 10th at 12:52 pm dad went home to be with his savior and his parents. We are are so greatful that dad didn't suffer and went home happy because he got to see/hear the packers win the superbowl the day before his heart attach.
Over the next several weeks Carey and both grieved for the loss of two loved ones in less than two weeks. Dad's memorial service was on Saturday the 19th and we had a really great turnout. It was so good to see all the people that dad knew.

Carey has continued to struggle with back pain but got some good news on monday when she saw a doctor at the united hospital. He gave her several options for treatment, now just have to wait and see if the partner care program will cover the cost.

We are all ready for some warmer weather and looking forward to upcoming holiday weekend. This saturday we are going to a twins game with my mom.
The Twins aren't playing well right now but still looking forward to seeing them play.

Work is going well for both of us. We are both busy with different projects going on.

Thanks for reading
God Bless
Michael and Carey Granica.

Snoopy’s Last Day. as told from her eyes

 

If you are reading this then that means I am now in heaven. I just wanted to tell you the story of my last day. I got up at about 9 am and daddy took me upstairs so I could go outside and potty. We then came back downstairs and had breakfast, he gave me some of his bagel with cream cheese, yummy. Cream Cheese is my favorite.

After breakfast I laid on the floor and slept until momma got up. When momma got up I greeted her and followed her to the bathroom. I then laid back down until mom and dad got dressed and we went upstairs.. to my surprise I got to go on a little road trip.

We went through North Branch, then made our way to taylors falls. On the way I heard mom and dad taking about dinner, and what I heard was KFC. They also talked about stopping at the scenic overlook in taylors falls but when we got to it found there were lots of people there. We got our food at KFC then went down to across the bridge in osceola and stopped at the park in minnesota. We had a yummy dinner, mom fed me some chicken, biscuit and potato wedges.  After dinner daddy put me on a rock with mom and took some pictures. Then I had pictures taken with daddy. We walked around the park for a while then got back in the car and went west on hwy 8. The next thing I know we stop and DQ and I hear daddy order two cones and a small dish of vanilla ice cream. OH BOY I bet the dish is for me… yep I was right a few minutes later we stop at a picnic table and mommy gave me the dish of ice cream… it was so yummy. After the ice cream we got back in the car and drove some more. Our next stop was at the blue sky animal hospital… I really don’t like this place but went inside with mommy and daddy. Next thing I know we are in an exam room and daddy lifted me up onto the table. They started petting me and then started crying and that is when I knew something wasn’t right. Then the doctor came in and gave me a shot, which really hurt and I made sure he knew it. A little bit later I got really sleepy and decided to lay down. Mommy and daddy still kept petting me and the crying increased. They kept saying how much they love me and how good a dog I was and that is when I got really worried. I got really sleepy and didn’t know what was going on, but could still feel them petting me and kissing me. A few minutes later I felt another prick from a shot and could hear mom and dad say goodbye. It got harder and harder to breathe and then a few moments later I found myself in a very different place. I look around and saw hundreds of thousands of dogs… but no people. Where are all the people? Then I was greeted by another dog and was told welcome to heaven. I just want to tell mommy and daddy I love you too and I am fine and have lots of fun here. I am not in any pain now, can run and jump and look at all those rabbits I can chase. Thank you mommy and daddy for taking such great care of me, loving me and for all the wonderful memories. I was blessed by the 12 years I had with some many wonderful people.

Difficult Day

 

Hello Friends and family
Today is a difficult day for Carey and I, A day we knew was coming but time can never prepare you for it. Today snoopy will be going to heaven. We have been so blessed to have her in our life. I for 12 years and Carey for 5. We noticed over the summer that she was breathing heavy and just thought it was from the heat. Then about a month ago we found a growth on a back leg. We took her in to the vet to get it checked and that was the least of the vets concerns. He noticed several things with her walking and breathing and that is when we found out about the fluid around her lungs and stomach. He put her on Lasik to get the fluid off. It has helped some but since we haven’t addressed the cause of the fluid buildup the weight has not come off enough to help her spine. The past month has been the most difficult seeing her sleeping a lot, not being able to go upstairs on her own and losing control her bladder.  She is just not the same happy dog and it is time, as difficult as it is for us, for her to go to heaven. We would appreciate all your prayers in the difficult time for us. We thank God for the time he has given us with her, she has been the best dog I have ever known.

We Love you Snoopy. We have lots of memories and you will be missed.

On a brighter subject since our last post lots of good things have happened… We celebrated my mom’s 70th birthday in august. I celebrated my 13th anniversary at Connecting Point. We went to two more Twins games at Target field. The biggest event in the past few months though was our 3rd wedding anniversary. We went to the Grand Casino in Hinckley, ate at the grand buffet, played some penny slots. We even won $50 on one of the slots. We also spent some time in the pool. It was a very romantic time for us and a much needed getaway.

Upcoming for us is a trip to Florida at the end of the month. We are going with Carey’s mom and brother to see the shuttle launch and also hoping to go to SeaWorld and Busch gardens if money allows.

I would once again thank you all for your prayers in the difficult time.

Michael and Carey Granica