Just when we thought the drama was over...

School started the week after I had surgery on my ankle.  I was loving my new job at the middle school but it was all I could do to make it through the day.  When I came home from school at about 4 I went straight to bed.  And I stayed there all night.  Time went quickly though and before I knew it, it was time to get the bandages off and get a real cast.

Here's the incision with lots of stitches...

Here's the bright pink cast I chose...

And, as you can see, my good friend, Meagan was in town so she helped me paint my toenails.  She enjoyed me being captive a little too much!

Things rocked along quite well for about a week.  One day, my leg felt funny all day.  It was really swollen in the cast, which you can imagine is quite uncomfortable, and the back of my calf was hurting.  I really didn't think much of it, just that I should probably drink more water and keep my foot elevated more.  I was at my parent's house for dinner and I mentioned the odd feeling in my leg to my Mom (a nurse) and she immediately said we were going to the emergency room.  Um, no thanks Mom.  I didn't have time or energy for the emergency room!  She insisted though, because she suspected that there might be a blood clot in my leg. And she was right.  Every time I think of having a blood clot I think of this scene in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory...



So, on top of everything else I've dealt with, I now had a blood clot measuring from the middle of my calf to the middle of my thigh.  Apparently this is quite a dangerous condition.  They wanted to admit me to the hospital that night but I fought it because I hadn't had a chance to prepare a SUB folder yet!  It would make me look really bad if I had to call in sick unexpectedly and didn't have a plan!  I talked the doctor into letting me go home as long as I promised to take it easy.  I went to work the next day.

They also wanted to put me on the normal course of treatment for a blood clot, blood thinners and anti-coagulants.  They gave me a prescription for Lovenox injections.  Yay!!  They hurt, a lot.  I was also instructed to consult my hemangioma doctor to make sure there wouldn't be any added risk for that hemorrhaging again.  We called Dr. Gilbert in Dallas the next day and he didn't think that blood thinners would be a good idea and suggested that I have an IVC Filter placed.  This didn't turn out to be that big of a procedure but I found it very interesting.  I was awake the whole time and watched on the screen as they placed the filter.  The doctors were optimistic that the filter would only be needed temporarily and we could have it removed in about 60 days.  So, as far as we knew, things were looking up!

Once again, I wish that was the end, but, it's not!!

Time Out

I was thinking today.

That's kind of funny if you know me at all, because, I think a lot! Probably too much.  Anyway, I was thinking about the doctor's appointment I just came from and the many I've been to since this crazy story began back in May.  And, the more I think about all that has happened since that first day when I fell out of the shower, the harder it is to tell my story or to even get out of bed in the morning without acknowledging the overwhelming provision and protection of my sovereign God. So, I want to take a time out from the crazy/silly/bloody details of the last 6 months and remind myself, and anybody reading, of the most important details of all.

We could start with the fact that the morning I fell out of the shower I was at my parent's house instead of living alone...On a morning when my sister was running late, allowing her to find me...On a rare day off for my Mom.  Or, the fact that when I fell down the stairs I was with a good friend who could help me.  Or, maybe that when my leg felt funny one day and I probably would have taken an extra pain pill and gone to bed my Mom knew something serious was going on.  Or when it was time to get my IVC filter removed (I'll tell that story soon) and no doctor really knew why we were taking it out, we discovered a new major problem (I'll tell that story soon too).  Or, when I was wandering around the woods with some friends, things could have gone very wrong but they didn't.  Any detail of the last six months points to one thing...God's been there the whole time.

I find it quite interesting that while my physical body seems to be revolting from normalcy my heart and my mind have had a revolution of their own.  I have fallen in love with the gospel in a whole new way.  Sure I've believed the gospel most of my life.  I've believed in God and believed that He sent Jesus to reconcile us to Himself.  I believed that my belief in those things would allow me to spend eternity in Heaven one day.  And, I still do.  But, it's so much more than that.

The gospel is about everyday, every moment recognizing my need for mercy and grace that I don't deserve.  Every day.  Every moment.  It's about recognizing that I will never be good enough to earn God's favor but knowing that I already have it because of what Jesus did on the cross.  The gospel saves me but it also changes me.  The gospel increases my joy and transforms the way I see the world around me.  The gospel frees me.  The gospel is present-tense.  The Village Church puts it this way, "we never graduate or outgrow the gospel."

I heard this song for the first time at church a few weeks back and have been listening non-stop ever since, it pretty much sums it all up...



I'm so thankful for the gospel.  I'm so thankful that while my body has needed work my heart did too.  I'm thankful that everything I've encountered on this crazy journey has been a part of the plan and has been a constant demonstration of grace.  God's been there, He's protected, and He's provided the whole time.  And He will never leave me.

8 screws later...

Less than a week before school started I had surgery on my ankle.  One metal plate and 8 screws later my leg had been put back together again.

I've never broken any bones before and I seriously underestimated what kind of inconvenience it is!  Everything was hard.  And I didn't really have time to sit around and just prop my foot up.  School was starting and I needed to be at work!

I was also really bad at crutches.  I'm pretty confident that if I had to use crutches I would have broken something else and I probably would have done lots of damage to the property of others. So, I spent 4 weeks of my life riding round on a little scooter! That scooter made my life so much easier!

Once again, thanks to my Mom, my Dad, my sister, and my friend Kristy for driving me around and loading and unloading my scooter during those 4 weeks! I know it wasn't fun!!

Here's an x-ray of the new and improved ankle...

Once again, I wish that was the end of this crazy medical tale!

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall...

And in this little story, I'm Humpty Dumpty!!

After a summer filled with hospital stays, surgery, and doctor's appointments I was thrilled that school was finally starting back.  I was a little nervous to be teaching a brand new grade at a brand new school but so glad to be healthy and back in action.

One afternoon about a little over a week before school started, I was headed to lunch with my good friends Deneise and Payton.  We were walking down some stairs and I was answering a text at the same time.  That was dumb.  As I neared the second to last step before the landing I totally over-stepped and fell down the last two stairs.  I heard a pop.  And I felt pain.  Lots of pain.  Luckily, my phone was totally ok.  I was not!  I was a bit disoriented, quite a bit pale, and certain that I just broke not one but both of my ankles.  Deneise was pretty much in shock of what just happened but kept her cool and I was so incredibly thankful for her help over the next several hours.

The first problem, I still had about 10 stairs to go before I made it to the bottom floor.  The second problem, I could not walk and I could not hop.  I slid down the rest of the steps and rolled out to the car in a chair.  We went straight to CareNow where we learned a broken bone was apparently not an emergency.  We were given a 2 hour wait time so we went ahead and went to In-n-Out for lunch!  By that time, my left ankle was feeling much better and I was ready to amputate the right one!

After waiting some more (remember this is a new game for me) I finally got called back.  A quick x-ray confirmed that my right fibula was fractured just above the ankle joint.  I left CareNow with a walking boot and instructions to see a specialist.  My Mom's connections got me in the next morning with an Orthopedic Surgeon who we were hoping would look at the x-rays, put me in a cast, and then send me on my way.  But he tricked me.  After looking at my x-ray he came in and asked me how active I was.  I may have exaggerated my activity level because I told him I liked to run.  Haha.  He immediately suggested that if I wanted to continue to be a runner (haha) I should probably have surgery to repair the bone properly.

Noooooooooooooo.  I didn't have time for surgery.  It was time to be back at work, and I was at a new school, in a new grade, with a new principal!  I so did not want to be THAT teacher that is already asking for time off.  But I had to.  Did I mention that I broke my right ankle?  As in the foot you use to drive a car?  So, not only was I unable to drive a car, I was also unable to finish getting my classroom ready.  Luckily, my friend, Kristy and my sister came to my rescue.  They drove me places, they shopped for me, they definitely came through in a big way.

After a summer of medical drama I broke my ankle, and broke it bad enough I had to have surgery.  And I wish that was the end of the story!

Is it over yet?

Somehow I go off track and never finished my funny/sad little story of how falling out of the shower turned into a summer of medical fun!

Anyway, after determining that a mass in my lower back was causing me to pass out we could not find a doctor in Fort Worth who was willing to take on a case that looked like spinal surgery was the next step.  So, they loaded me up in an ambulance and drove me to Baylor Medical Center in Dallas.  I'll be honest, I was not so excited about being further away from home, but I was pumped about being someplace associated with Baylor!  

My sister and my friend, Haley, volunteered to spend the night with me that first night in Dallas.  It turned out to be quite a doozy.  I was awoken in the middle of the night multiple times to be asked ridiculous questions.  One doctor was there to treat me for my asthma (pretty sure I don't have asthma nor was I complaining of not being able to breathe).  The nurse woke me up to start an IV that wasn't even hooked up to anything.  To say it was a long night would be the greatest of understatements.  I desperately wanted a chest x-ray performed so that they could begin using my PICC line instead of poking me a hundred times a day, so imagine my frustration when they woke me up again early in the morning to take me down to radiology for...an ultrasound.  An ultrasound??  Why did I need an ultrasound??  

The poor little ultrasound tech had to listen to me question every order that was in my chart until I finally convinced her to take me right on over to get that chest x-ray instead of returning to my room.  By the time I made it back to my room I felt as if someone had poured itching powder all over me.  As far as I knew, this hospital sucked and I was done.  I texted my Mom and told her not to let Dad park the car and we would be leaving as soon as they got there.  I also insisted on putting my Harris hospital gown back on because someone had done something to the Baylor one.  My Mom arrived and the nurse brought me a Xanax.

The next several days went something like this...nothing happened!  I just sat there all day hoping it would be the day that something happened.  But it never did.  Finally we had waited long enough, they did biopsies, and aspirations and I was feeling well enough to be released from the hospital.  I spent the next several days sleeping, laying around, and trying to get back to normal.  About a week later my Mom and I drove to Dallas to see the Orthopedic Oncologist.  This is when I started my new, least favorite past time...waiting at the doctor's office!  Once we made it back to see the very nice doctor, he informed us that the very painful needle biopsy that was performed in the hospital did not get enough tissue to determine exactly what this mass was.  So, I would get to do it all again, this time they'd go ahead and cut me open to get a better look!  Yay!

The open biopsy was performed and we waited another two weeks before driving back to Dallas to get the results and hopefully be able to make a plan that would keep this all from happening again.  The good doctor gave us the good news that while there was a fairly large mass near my spine it was completely benign.  He officially diagnosed it as hemangioma.  We had originally discussed that we would begin a process called serial embolization to kill the hemangioma and cause it to shrink.  Once we had the actual diagnosis though, the doctor felt it would be best to just watch it for awhile with MRIs and CT scans and then re-evaluate the situation.  

No cancer, no surgery, no medicine...sounds like a plan to me!  I was feeling better everyday and was so relieved that things seemed to be back to normal before the new school year began!

I wish that was the end...and it totally was at the time I wrote that first post...unfortunately, that was just the beginning.

A funny thing happened on the way to the schoolhouse!

I thought I'd document the super fun summer I've been having, mostly for myself but also for anyone else that enjoys long rambling blog posts. :)

The end of the school year was a little bittersweet to me because while I'm always ready for summer, this was going to be the end of my last year at Blue Haze. After 7 years I decided to move schools and teach 7th grade Math at Brewer Middle School. So, the last day of school was set to be a busy day of playing and packing up my classroom. It's always been important to me to end the year on a high note because that's the last thing the kids are going to remember. I had so many cool things planned for that last day!

I woke up (really late) at about 6:55. While I was brushing my teeth I felt a little funny but just thought I was having a hard time waking up, something that is really not that unusual. I hopped in the shower and about the time I was rinsing out the shampoo from my hair things really started to feel funny. The next thing I knew I was on the floor wrestling with the shower curtain! Somehow I ended up half-way out in the hallway where my sister (I was staying with my parents while I was between homes) looked at me like I was crazy and asked if I was ok. I wish I was with it enough to say, "I'm fine, isn't this normal behavior?" Just kidding! She immediately got my Mom (a nurse) and by the time she got there I realized that my back was hurting insanely bad. We figured I probably did some damage as I fell out of the shower. She got me to my bed, took my blood pressure (it was fine), and began some pain meds. 

Within a few minutes I was actually feeling much better and began letting my Mom know that I needed to go to school. She wasn't going to let me drive there but I think I had her convinced that I could make it. Unfortunately, when I was trying to get dressed I started to feel like I was going to pass out again. She was concerned we couldn't make it down the stairs without me taking both of us out so she called an ambulance and off to the Emergency Room I went! The next few hours were definitely a blur as they tested this and tested that. I passed out again in the ER and they quickly decided I needed to stay long enough to be admitted.

It took a few days, a ton of doctors, CT Scans, and an MRI to come to the conclusion that I had a mass in my lower back. It apparently got angry and hemorrhaged. The excess fluid put pressure on one of my main arteries and caused my blood pressure to drop and me to pass out whenever I stood up. Finally, we had a reason for all the trouble! We just didn't have a plan to make it go away yet! Don't worry though, the adventure is only beginning...more to come!

Guess who??

I was just looking through the pictures on my iPad and it looks like some people have been having some photo booth fun!