Update!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and Black Friday. We had a great time for sure! I cooked a turkey (my best one ever), stuffing, green bean casarole, 2 pumkin pies, an apple pie, crumb cake, chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies, and deviled eggs. We ate at Tony and Kelly's house and Kelly cooked a ham, corn casarole, veggies, mashed potatoes and dinner rolls. Kelly was awesome and did most of the clean up while I relaxed, I was beat from the days of cooking. We make a great team when it comes to holiday cooking. It was great to have my Mother-in-law Donna there with Ralph. Carol also joined us and had a great time. Carol is Matt's dad's first wife and still a big part of the family. Her and Donna had a good time catching up. It was a great day!
I sure did miss my Mom this Thanksgiving, it was my first without her. I am certain that she is in a much better place now and I give thanks for that. December 7th will be one year without her. It just doesn't seem possible. I have been following her former doctor in the news. His licence was suspended in late October for 90 days. I really hope that he never practice medicine again. My mom is one of many that have died of a drug overdose. Click here to read the latest article about him.
I did some Christmas shopping yesterday. I didn't head out until 9am and it was still pretty busy. I only went to WalMart and Toy's R Us. The line at Toy's R Us was about a 45 minute wait! I got a great deal so it was worth it. It so much fun shopping for Savannah. The boy's only want video games these days and that's not so fun for me.
My friend Anissa is still in a coma but trying to wake up. Her family could really use ours prayers. Her youngest daughter is really having a rough time without her mom. Her update will now be here.

Anissa

Here is a picture I took of Anissa and her youngest daughter, Peyton at Fasion Funds the Cure 07. It's a fashion show to benefit the Pediratic Cancer Foundation. It was an amazing evening!!

Prayers needed!!

I wanted to ask for your prayers for a friend of mine. Her name is Anissa and she is an amazing woman, wife and mother. She is in her 30’s and just had a massive stroke. She had a stroke in 2005 and fully recovered. She’s a fighter for sure! This stroke is much worse and things aren’t looking good. Her youngest daughter Peyton (5) is a cancer survivor, and 1 year off treatment!! She also has a son, Nathanial (11), and another daughter, Rachel (7).

If you want to help this family please click on the box in the upper right hand corner!

If you want to follow her progress she has a Caringbridge site:
http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/anissamayhew

Savannah

Here are some new pictures of my little diva. She loves having her picture taken!

Report cards

I am so proud of my son Luke. He got all A's on his report card. I never even got close to that. School just comes so easy for him and he hasn't even really started to work very hard. I hope he continues to do well. Here is what his teacher had to say:
Luke's super grades this term are a reflection of his hard work in class and at home. I can always count on Luke to give 100% effort, and to ask questions when he doesn't understand something. Luke's behavior is excellent , and he seems to enjoy participating in class. He is a model student and a friend to everyone. You should be very proud of yourself, Luke!

I am also very proud of Austin! He got his report card a couple weeks ago. He is doing amazing in middle school and seems to emjoy it. He got 4 C's, 2 B's and an A!! Here are some of the comments from his teachers:
Possitive attitude / effort
Works well with others
Displays responsibility
Becoming self-directed learner
Work is improving
He is also staying after school two days a week for tutoring. He hasn't once complained about staying until 5:20 pm on Mondays & Thursdays. He is seeing that his hard work is paying off! He is also off all his ADHD meds and doing better without them. He is become quite a young man and so tall!!

Miss Savannah got her very first report card, and she did very well. She is ahead of where she should be is almost everything. Here is what her teacher had to say about her:
Savannah is a very creative student. Her art work is mature and beautiful. She loves to learn and participate in all activites. Please continue to practice letter recognition and sounds at home for more practice. Keep up the good work.

website

My website is up and running!!

customcraftshop.com

More hospital stuff

I can't believe how much my recent hospital stay has affected me. It's hard to think about it without getting teary eyed. It's almost like I was a different person when I was there. I guess I had to be strong otherwise I would have gone crazy! I can't tell you how many different people I had to tell my story to before my back was fixed, doctor's, nurses, roomates, friends, family and even the housekeeping lady. I was begininng to think that there wasn't really anything wrong with me and I was just going to have a headache forever. When I woke up from surgery and my headache was gone, I knew I wasn't crazy!!
I think being in the hospital is a huge stresser for anyone. I had never had to stay for 8 days before. I loved all my nurses that took care of me. I look foward to taking them some homemade cookies soon. They went out of their way to make me comfortable. I was so embarrased to have to use a bedpan, but they tried to put my mind at ease.
I have a bag that has all the stuff from the hospital in it that I can't seem to put away. Everytime I get near it I want to just start crying. I'm just going to leave it alone for a while. It was really hard getting through everything without my mom. I miss her so much. It's almost been a year since she passed away.
The kids are all doing great! Austin has been off his ADHD meds for over a month now and he is doing awesome!!! He is working so hard in middle school and we are so proud of him. He is such a good helper and has a heart of gold. Luke is doing super in school, all As on his first report card! He's been growing so much lately, he's not my little boy anymore. He ususlly the one testing us but he can also be very sweet. Savannah loves kindergarten and everything about it. I think she would live there if she could. She loves learning and playing and meeting new friends. She loves to draw pictures, I mean LOVES it!! This girl is always working on some sort of art project.
Matt has been amazing through everything. I love him more everyday. We were made for each other for sure. He listens to all my worries and makes they better. He always seems to know what to say and when to say it. I am so excited that I get to spend the rest of my life with him.

Update & trick-or-treating

I can't believe that it's already November, where has the year gone? I have to admit that it's been a tough year. The past month is has been the toughtest. The whole time I was in the hospital I had a positive attitude and didn't really worry much. I just did what I had to do to get better. When I got home it all hit me and I have really struggled. Things are getting better thanks to my amazing friends and family. Of course Matt has been my rock and really got me through the tough times. I'm done with all the pain meds and life continues to move on.
Here are a few pictures from Halloween. Matt took Luke and Savannah out trick-or-treating.
                                                                Boba Fett

Bunny

Amy Update!

I wanted to get on here and update about the past couple weeks. My surgery on the 14th went well and I was home the next day, Thursday the 15th. I was up and about and feeling great. But when I woke up on Thursday the 22nd my head was killing me. It got so bad that I asked to call an ambulance to take me to the hospital. There was just no way I could have sat up in the van for the 10-15 minute ride. The pain in my head, neck and upper shoulders was like nothing I've ever felt before....it was hell.


When I got to the hospital I was given some pain meds that helped control the unrelenting pain. I saw a few doctors and it was decided that I would receive a blood patch in my spine to hopefully repair any leak of CSF that might me going on. The procedure was done in my ER room and quite painful. They took some of my blood and put it in my epidural space. The doctor that did it was ready to send me home but I asked to stay overnight to see how I felt the next day. Needless to say the patch didn't work and what came next was a bunch of tests:

MRI of my lumbar spine, with & without contrast

MRI of my brain, with & without contrast

CT scan of my neck, base of my skull and upper shoulders.

X-ray of my chest

Countless blood tests

2 spinal taps

2 blood patches

10 day total inpatient

The first spinal was awful and they weren't able to get any fluid. That was really scary because I had no idea if that was good or bad, I was leaning towards bad. The reason they couldn't find fluid was because it was in the same spot where they did surgery and there was tons of scar tissue. So the next spinal was in my room and they tried another blood patch. They got fluid but the patch didn't help. The fluid showed some abnormal white blood cells so I was in isolation for about 24 hours. They had to rule out meningitis, which they did. If anything it would have been chemical.

My doctor wanted me to try and get up and walk with PT. I did okay with walking but my head started hurting so bad that I had to get back to bed ASAP. That evening my neurosurgeon calls and asked if I would be willing to do surgery to get a really good look and make repairs as needed. So he went in through my scar and was able to sew up the problem and my headaches were gone when I woke up in recovery!! Dr. Jobe said that he had never had a case like mine but had read about it. I told him that he will never forget me. I will see him in the morning and update soon after.

Love, Amy