Update on Rachel

I know...It has been a LONG time!! I got out of the habit of blogging and then it just seemed too much to get back in...
I will just pick up here...

Rachel is scheduled for surgery on her feet on August 30th. She will be having an Osteotomy and work on her feet. We are not sure what all will need to be done to her feet yet...

Most Spina Bifida kids do not have a lot of control from their hips down, so to wait until they are three is no big deal. Rachel has great control/ function to her knees. From her knees up, she is like a normal two year old...below her knees are different story. So, it will benefit Rachel to have her surgery sooner rather than later.
At her doctor appointment back in February, they wanted to do it at the beginning of Spring (May?) and then she would be in a cast for around 6 weeks. Here in NW PA, we have terrible weather for 9 months of the year and then great weather for only a few in the summer. I really did not want Rachel to be in casts while the other kids were playing outside, going to the beach, swimming...you get the idea. Plus, we can get really humid weather here too, and we do not have air conditioning...It just didn't seem fair to Rachel. So, I asked if we could push her surgery out until the fall. We got a preliminary pre-op date (for testing, X-rays, things like that) in late August. Well, the last time we saw her team, they really felt the surgery needed to be done sooner rather than later. With Spina Bifida, there is no easy fix. So, although Rachel is wearing bracing to help keep her feet straight, those braces are also causing skin irritation and bruising.
Well, her team at Shriner's here in Erie also has concern that her feet problem is not being caused by a tethered cord (Hard to explain, but picture it with me: Her spinal cord -where her defect is- flying around and attaching to something in the column. Surgery would be needed to correct this.
So, we are going to Pittsburgh a little early to get the tethered cord ruled out.

Ugh! This is not the most eloquent post I have ever written, but hopefully you get the idea of where we are right now.
Two prayer concerns (three):
1. Rachel does not have a tethered cord...that the problems in her feet are only caused by her growth.
2. Rachel's surgery: that it goes REALLY well and that the date gets changed to an earlier date. August 30th is the kids' first day of school, and I hate the thought of not being here to get them ready and on the bus, getting the pictures and all of that. The surgery schedule was full: it was Aug 30th (which was a cancellation) or wait until November...:)