Family visit

My family had not seen the girls since March so they could not get up here fast enough!  My mom, step dad and grandmother came up for the weekend!  The girls sure missed them and were SO excited to have some time with them!

This is my precious grandma reading a book to the girls!  They love their Gran-Gran!  She is a huge blessing to our family!  Can I add... she turns 82 next month and still works a full time job and gets around like she is my age!  :-)

It was my mom's birthday as well so the girls were excited to get a cake for Mimi!  They love spending time with Mimi and are always so sad when its time for them to leave!  I think it was hard for them to be here though and hear Lillie's screams with knee bends!  Unfortunately you get used to it when you have heard it for 3 months!  Still breaks my heart though!

wedding bells!

I was so thankful that the Lord allowed me to get home in time for one of my college roommate's wedding!   I was so afraid I was going to miss it!  Rebecca and Kenton got married in Asheville N.C.!  It was a crazy day driving up to Asheville and back all in one day but I was so thankful I got to watch her walk down that aisle!  :-)

Jenny and Elaine with the traditional "fun girl honeymoon bag"  :-)

They did this for Brad and I and it has become a tradition with each fun girl that gets married!  It is waiting in the car for them when they leave!  tee hee hee!  :-)

LOVE these sweet girls!  What a blessing they are in my life!

Rebecca and Kenton!  I am so excited for her and what the Lord has done!

We were all so thankful we could all be together to celebrate with them!  Its hard now to get everyone together at the same time - so this was a blessing for sure!

little ballerina

The week we came home Addie Lane got to do ballet camp (she was so afraid she was going to miss it!).  They studied a different famous ballet each day and it was a week long.  They learned swan lake, Cinderella, copelia, and Sleeping Beauty.  Then on Friday they did a show for the parents to show us all what they had learned!  She had so much fun!

Doing a great passé!

Look at that stretch!  We have no idea where she got her flexibility from!  

Addie Lane ADORES her sweet teacher, Mrs. Julia!

One of Addie Lane's precious friends - Mary Grace!

We were so proud of our little ballerina!  She has come a long way since she started at 2 1/2 (she almost got kicked out of class then!)  :-)

coming home

Well we are home and have been home a little over a week now!  

It has been a whirlwind of craziness but we are thankful to be home.  

I must admit it has been a little bit of a difficult transition for us all to jump back into life and responsibilities here but at the same time still have to take care of all the therapy and pin care.

Lillie has had a difficult time with knee bends since being home.  Her knee is so tight and just keeps refusing to bend good.  It takes us most of the morning each day to work her knee to get it to begin bending some.  Our therapist here is wonderful and has started coming over every day to work with her.  We are very grateful for her!  Lillie is such a trooper and is working so hard!  We just have to "teach" her muscle to relax and learn to bend and straighten again after it has been "traumatized" through this lengthening!

Our therapist broke out into singing yesterday doing knee bends "go to sleep little muscle... go to sleep"   :-)  Lillie thought it was really funny that she was singing to her knee!

Lillie on our LONG drive home!  she was really sweet in the car but we did have to stop a lot to let her get out and bend her knee some!

The first thing she wanted to do when we got back was ride her barbie bike!

The next day we went to visit our sweet friends the Bakers b/c the girls were about to have a fit to see them! They have a zip line in their backyard and yes...... this is Lillie WITH A FIXATOR doing the zip line!  Jennifer and I were both about to have a heart attack with her doing that!

Lillie doesn't let a fixator stop her from anything!

Please don't sent this to our doctor!  :-)

Addie Lane gave it a try too!  (you can see she is not nearly as much of a daredevil as her little sister, she had to the rope securely under her)

I realized too I had forgotten to post a pic of Addie Lane from her recital in Baltimore!  They got metals and she was so excited!  One of the moms handed out flowers to them too so she really felt like it was a "real big girl recital"   :-)

our last day

Today has been such a mixture of emotions!

I am so thankful to be heading home but at the same time sad to say good bye to sweet friends that I may never see again and all at the same time being a little afraid to leave the nurses and doctors and be so far away!

This is the girls saying goodbye to sweet Luca.  Luca and his family were the first family we met here, we were in pre-op together and then had surgery together.  They have been a life saver and we will miss them.  Luca has done great and will be heading back to California in about a month.  The girls favorite thing to do with him was turn off the lights and play chase and hide and seek in the hall way upstairs!  They will miss that for sure... although I am sure the rest of the house will not miss their squeals and running up and down the halls!  :-)

This is Lillie's x-ray from today's appointment!  They took x-rays of her standing so they could see her hips and see the exact amount she had over.  This x-ray showed that she is 1.5 cm longer on her left leg now.  We could see the new bone growth again and it truly is amazing!

We are so grateful!

This is our amazing wonderful doctor... Dr. standard!  He actually did his residency at MCG in Augusta so that is a fun thing in common!  We are so grateful for his expert care with Lillie!  

We had a pizza party tonight, our last night in the house!  We were thankful for this so we got to say goodbye to all our sweet friends!

Some of our sweet friends surprised Lillie and got a cake for her!  Too sweet!

We are so grateful for you guys and your friendship and we will miss you!  Thanks for being so kind to our family and being family to us here!

and thanks to all of you back home who have so faithfully prayed for us and encouraged us with words of truth!  we are so very grateful!

I can't believe this part of the process is coming to an end!  wow!

We have so much to be thankful for!

more pics.....

here are a few more..

These are some more of the sweet people we will miss!

This is sweet Mrs. Amy and the girls!  They adore her!  She has taken such great care of us and made this process so much easier.  She does fund raising for the house and handles all the details of keeping the house running!

This is Mr. Bill (he is the house manager and handles all the reservations), and Ms. Gwen (she is in charge of activities for the house).  They have all been so sweet to our family!

Lillie all ready for pool!  She was so excited about getting in that she had her float on in her wheelchair!  :-)

Lillie and sweet Jack!  He really is one of the sweetest, joyful little boys I have ever met!

We took the girls down to the harbor (they were SO excited to have their Daddy here) and we got some yummy cheesecake at the cheesecake factory.  They love to watch the boats in the harbor!  Mommy will miss the water too, its so peaceful!

pics

Well here are some of the pictures I promised from the last week or so...

This first one was from craft time last 2 weeks ago.  A local artist came in every Wed and and did craft time for the children in the house.  The girls looked forward to this every week.

This is the girls in a "bubble maker" at the children's museum.  One of their best friends here, Sean is making the bubble around them.

This is the girls with Isabella. She was one of Lillie's closest friends here.  She just turned 2 and she is right down the hall from us. She loved to come in room and play with the girls.  She was here to lengthen her tibia and is such a sweet little girl, they are from Alabama, so we were thankful to have some other southerners around!

This is such a sweet group of girls.

Sophia, Addie Lane, Haley, Lexi, Lillie and Maddie!  We were thankful to have these sweet girls around.  They are all still here for a while, so remember to pray for all these sweet kids that are still at the house lengthening!  they are all such troopers!

This is the girls with Sean!  They ADORE him!  He is one of the sweetest little guys ever!  He is here from Iowa and is lengthening all has four fixators.  He is not allowed to get up and walk at all and you never hear him complain about it!

We are thankful for such sweet friends to share this process with!  what an answer to prayer!

We're going HOME!!!

Yes, we are its true.... we are going back to GA tomorrow!  whooo!  hooo!

Our appointment today was great.  The x-rays showed that we now have 6.5 cm of growth in her left leg, so we are actually 1.5 cm longer on that leg now.  we only thought we had a little over 6 but its actually 6 1/2 so we were very thankful.  He said that her new bone looks great and is healing nicely!  He said that it should take around 3 months for it all to consolidate and hopefully then the fixator should come off!  :-)

He said it should be 1-2 years before she needs a lift again, depending on how fast she grows. so that was fun news too!  

She actually has gotten her first pin site infection today which we are not thrilled about but they put her on antibiotic and hopefully that will take care of it quickly!

She is having more pain with knee bends again but they think its because of the infection.

I am a little nervous about leaving here and being so far away but thankfully they are just an email away (atleast with questions they are!)  :-)

thanks so much for praying for us through this process, we are so very grateful!

we are rejoicing over what the Lord has done and we can't wait to show you Lillie's long leg!

I will post some pics later tonight hopefully!

see you soon!

love you!

Stopped turning!

Well, we stopped turning tonight!  I don't know whether to be excited or cry!  Its all such a mixture of emotion!  The doctor said we could stop whenever we decided was best and Brad and I decided to stop today so that we can get some good days of therapy in before we leave to work on regaining Lillie's knee bends.  Once you stop turning, the muscles begin to relax and you begin to regain some of your range of motion in your knee.  Lillie's has only gotten down to 60 degrees (some kids get down to 45) so it should not be that difficult to get her back up.  Our goal will be to get her back to an 80 degree bend before the fixator comes off.  We will also have to watch her hips to make sure she does not develop a contracture as everything heals, we want all the muscles to heal in the "correct way".  My predictions show that we should be around 6.2 centimeters today (but we will know for sure at our x-ray at our appt on monday).  We are so grateful for what the Lord has done for Lillie.  She now has a small 1 cm lift on her "good leg".  It is truly amazing to see how long her leg is and to know it has gotten that way in a little over 2 1/2 months is just mind boggling to me!  We can't wait for you to see her long leg!  She is so excited about it too!   Thank you so much for how you have prayed along with us and for us!  We are so grateful for you!

Below is a pic of Lillie turning her screw for the last time tonight!  She was excited but mommy as a little emotional (as always!)  :-)

then here are some pics from last week.

I forgot to post the pic of her x-ray from her last visit.

Its pretty amazing b/c you can see the difference even from the last pic of her x-ray!

Its so long!  :-)

Here is a pic of Lillie getting in the pool!

She is going to miss this place so much! (we all will)

The sweet people here at the house gave the girls hats that say "hackerman patz house" on them.  Not sure where Addie Lane learned this pose!  :-)

This was from craft night last week.  They have craft night here every wed night.  They had the best time making frames for Father's Day!  These kids are amazing here!  The girls are going to miss having all these playmates around 24/7.  They all call Addie Lane "the mayor" b/c she goes around from room to room checking on everyone and keeps up with what everyone is doing and where they are going!  :-)

oh and I forgot to tell you too.... I got my chicken pox titers back and praise the Lord I am immune!  thanks for praying for that!  I was glad to know I wouldn't be banned from the hospital!

Praise Him with THANKSGIVING!

Our therapist just called me and said we were given 60 more days of therapy!  So that will give us therapy through the end of July!  Praise the Lord!

So now we will pray too that this will transfer for back home!

We are so very grateful for his provision!

We are so grateful to this sweet doctor who got on the phone and helped make it happen!

Just wanted to say thank you so much for praying!

It is so encouraging to be reminded of how much our Heavenly Father cares for His children!

love you!

and about the chicken pox.... I went in today to check on the results of my titer and they told me wrong, its a two day test.  So it won't be back until tomorrow (which is too late to get the vaccine). So I am just praying I/we won't get it!

and about a game plan..... after talking with the therapist today we are thinking we will keep turning through next Tuesday which will take us to a little over 6 cm then we will use the last few days of that week doing therapy to begin regaining the bend she has lost.  We have an appt on Monday the 16th and assuming all goes well at that then we will start driving back on that Tuesday the 17th.  So thats 2 weeks from today!  I can't believe it!

(and of course we know around here anything can change, but this is the plan for now).

I will be sad to leave these sweet people but so excited to be back home too!

what is so sweet about all of that too is not only will Lillie be leaving here with even legs but it also would mean Brad could be here for Addie Lane's recital on the 13th (which she has been praying for) and also I would get to go to my sweet college roommate's wedding on the 21st!

we are rejoicing today for sure!

our appt today

ok.... well we had our check up today and were there all morning.  It went well.  The x-rays showed that she now has 5.6 cm of new growth, so praise the Lord we have now met our first goal. 

He was very pleased and said her bone growth looked great. He said that it is up to us as to when we stop turning, but he would like to see us push her a little bit more.

So we have decided to lengthen for another 2 weeks and that should take us to around 6.5 cm which would put her even longer on that "affected leg".  (if she seems to be at her limit and her leg continues to be really sore then we may stop once we reach 6 cm).  Our other dilemma is the insurance, we don't want to go into big debt over just one more cm.  He was so sweet and wants to try and help us so he is going to personally call our insurance (if he can get the medical director there) and explain to them how crucial this and how much it will end up costing them in the future if this is all not done correctly.

So at this point we are not sure exactly when we will be done, it will be anywhere between 2 to 3 more weeks (depending on her leg muscles and our insurance for PT).

We are very grateful for how the Lord has grown Lillie's leg.  

She is now half a cm longer on her other leg and he said it should take up to 2 or maybe 3 years before she would need a shoe lift again on her "short leg".

We are rejoicing tonight for sure!

you can pray with us that our doctor will get to speak with the medical director and that we will get approved for more PT visits.

You can also pray that we will make the best decision for Lillie as to when we stop turning (the more length we get now then that means that much longer before she will need a lift again).

You can also pray for one more "little thing".... I just found out we were exposed to the chicken pox on Saturday and guess who has never had them before.... ME!  (although I talked to my mom tonight and she said she does think I had a very mild case of them when I was younger).  So I had my titers checked today to see if I have antibodies to it (pray that I do).  That should come back tomorrow and if I don't have immunity to it then I will need to hurry and get the vaccine.  I have heard its horrible to get it as an adult (just thinking about it makes me want to freak out!).   Pray too that the girls don't get it, they have been vaccinated but I know they can still get it!  I think I really would have to start taking some of Lillie's Valium if that happened!

thank you so much for being so faithful to pray with us and for us over these last couple of months!  we are so very grateful!

we love you and look forward to showing off Lillie's long beautiful leg real soon!

"See how God makes the Lillies GROW"  (Matthew 6:28)