Happy Birthday Jesus!!

What a blessing to celebrate our Savior's birth!! What a bonus blessing to be able to do this with family and friends. Wow!! We are very blessed in this country to be able to do this openly and freely. Scott and I both have family coming in from out of state to help us celebrate this joyous occasion and are very excited to see them all. We pray that time of year will bring you joys and blessings as well.

As we have been encountering several things lately, I thought I would update you all on a few of them.

I went to the Michigan Pain Clinic on Tuesday, December 12 and they "squeezed me in" and did a procedure called "Facet Joint Block Injection" to screen my pain level and area. I had to keep a pain diary for every hour after the procedure until the next morning at 10 a.m., then I had to mail the diary back to the doctor. If the screen came back positive, they would proceed with injections every so often to maintain the pain. If the screening came back negative, they would do another procedure, which is a prep for surgery, called "Discography". Then I would be sent to a surgeon.

I also went to the surgeon, since my neurologist had referred me to both, the pain clinic and the surgeon, on Wednesday, December 13th...yes, the next day. He basically said to go back to the clinic and let them finish doing all of the testing and to send him the results. He acted like he would be seeing me again. He also acted like he wanted to exhaust all other options before hand.

I received a call today....Thursday, December 21st from the Pain Clinic. They have scheduled me for my next test on Monday, February 5th at 10:40 a.m. I asked what kind of test and if the screening results had been read yet....they said it came back negative. That means that injections will not be an option for me and the next step will be this test to determine which discs are giving me my pain problems and need to be included in the surgery. Yes, that is right. I will have to have back surgery.

The surgeon did tell me when I was there that if/when he did surgery on me, that he did NOT want me leaving for at least 3 months after. He said I would be in the hospital for a couple of days and then after 10 weeks I would need to start physical therapy. He said he goes in through the belly and that this reduces scar tissue on the nerves in the back which in the long run, reduces possible future pain. He is considering two options: fusion or disc replacements. He is leaning towards the fusion. He gave me literature on both. God knows all things!!!

Two more guys were laid off from Scott's work yesterday. Only 4 left on his team. He is second in seniority, but last as far as "buttering" up the bosses. (That is the nicest way I know how to put that). LOL So, we don't know what that means for him as far as the future with having work or not. Only God knows!! :-)

We received a Christmas card yesterday from some dear friends and due to circumstances beyond their control, they needed to pull their pledge from our support. God knows all things!!
We want to hold them up in prayer for the Lord to bless them and to help them in this time.

We also received another one with a check in it. God knows all things!! We truly believe that it will work out just as He has planned. All of it!! We are still very excited about what the Lord is doing and are excited to be a part of it. We ask that you would please continue to keep us in your prayers and to keep in touch. We would love to hear from you!

God bless and Merry Christmas!!!
Lela~