My sweet prayer warrior sisters,

It is with a very heavy heart that I write to you again. It seems this last year has really taken it's toll on our family, and we are facing yet another serious trial in our house. Before I go on, let me just say PRAISE GOD! I know where the attacks come from, and I know who has the victory over anything the devil tries to steal from us. I love my Lord and always will, no matter what is thrown at us.

 

Last night, at approximately 8:PM, I was driving home from work. As I do every night, I called my daughter Jamie (she is the youngest, age 13). We always discuss what we are going to eat when I get home. She was at her friend Angela's house and they were going to head home to meet me there, and believe it or not, we were all craving Top Ramen, hahaha. After my *poor* days I never imagined having Ramen cravings, but it was what I wanted. It took about 15-20 minutes for me to get home. I went straight upstairs, put on my PJs and headed downstairs to track down the Ramen. I couldn't find it and I was disappointed, but I figured maybe it was stashed behind all the bags of cereal or something. I turned around to do something and my doorbell had rung.

I went to the door and it was Angela, my daughter Jamie's best friend. She had a very frightened look on her face and said Jamie was at Cottonwood Park, up a tree because she was afraid of a Moose. Angela had *biked* home to get me so I could go block the Moose and help her out of the tree.

We ran right out the door, I didn't have shoes on or anything, and I went to rescue Jamie from the Moose. When we got there, the Moose was a ways away from the tree Jamie was in, so I put the truck between us and aimed the lights at the tree. I opened my window, called out to her it was OK to come down now, and there was no answer. I figured she was wanting one of us to walk out there so Angela went to the tree to tell her it was OK now. At that point Angela came running back and told me Jamie had fallen out of the tree and could not move.

I jumped out of the truck and ran over to her and found her face down, unable to move anything but her arms and a little bit of head motion. I called 911 and waited for the paramedics, then I called my husband, who was there before the ambulance loaded her up.

While I was waiting for the ambulance and my husband, I was trying to assess what had happened. It turned out she had a fall of anywhere between 30-40 FT high. She broke a branch on her way down, which allowed me to see where she had fallen from. There were no lower branches in this area, except for the one she broke on the way down, and the rest of the branches were WAYYYYYYYYY up there.

We got the to the ER and they did their assessments and evaluations, gave her X-rays, CT scans and also an MRI. It was determined that she had to have surgery right then. She has broken her C4 C5 C6 C7 vertebrae in her neck. C6 had a chip in it and it was crushed and pushing out into her spinal cord. This was causing her paralysis. She was able to wiggle her fingers and toes, and move her arms a little bit, and she could feel everything they were doing, she just couldn't get any true movement out of anything.

In most cases, they will not perform surgery until some of the trauma has left the body and the swelling goes down. However, in order to try and prevent Jamie from becoming a quadriplegic overnight due to swelling and trauma, they decided to operate on the most pressing thing immediately. During these hours of evaluation and what not, her paralysis had worsened. 

She went into surgery at 3:AM (Sept 26, 2008) and was released from surgery between 8 and 9:AM. She is now stable but she is in the exact same situation as mother was just a few short months ago. She is on all the same medications, she has a breathing and feeding tube, and of course catheters and all the other hoses they have hooked up to monitor her and give her the saline etc.

The Neurosurgeon removed C6, and did a bone infusion and placed a metal plate in the front of her neck. The plate goes from C4 to T1 (you can look these up online to get a better picture if you do not know the area). She will have limited movement of her neck due to the plate. She can't put her chin all the way down or lean her head all the way back anymore. After surgery, the paralysis had not changed. Removing the disk, the Doctor was hopeful that the relief of pressure on the spinal cord would help bring her extremities back. He informed us of all the possibilities... Removing the disk and relieving pressure possibly leading to a full recovery, Removing the disk and having no change at all (which is what occurred) or that she would become a quadrapalegic after surgery.

Although I was hoping for the best option, I am thankful to God that she still has very limited use of her arms at this point. I believe in time, with all of our combined prayers and the grace of God and His mighty healing power, and thw wonderful Doctors and Nurses He has provided for us, that Jamie will make a full recovery.

Mind you, this is all faith based. If I were to listen to the Doctor, they give the worst case scenario, which is their job. For myself, I will spend every breath I take working with her for as long as it takes, to bring her back to full mobility. I know God will see us through this and bring her back to a very full life and to have all of her extremities working better than they did before the accident. The only thing that will stay with her is the bar in her neck, which after some years, will have to be operated on again.

As I said, she is stable right now and sedated for her own good. In one week she has to go into surgery again and have another metal plate put in the back of her neck. This means she still has a chance of being worse after the second surgery. I do not believe that will be the case, but I would like very specific prayer for her next surgery and for all she is going through now, and has to face in the years to come.

Let's rock this establishment ladies, and petition God, The Great Physician to bring us miracles that medical science can not explain. Let's ask Him to use Jamie and our family as walking, talking, running, jumping, bike riding testimonies to the love of our Lord!

I am going to be setting up a website through the hospital so that anyone can sign in and find out Jamie's progress, all you need is the site and a password. As soon as I get that setup I will email out the link and password.

I love you all so very much, and I am sorry I have not written in a while. Since Mother's passing, I have just been trying to get back on track. Well, my feet are planted firmly on the track now and the gun has fired. I'm at a full on sprint to get life back to normal. Please start ringing those prayer bells in Heaven.

Love and God Bless each and every one of you,

Margaret,

Enclosed is a picture of Jamie, this summer while we were visiting Mom when she was in the hospital. Jamie is doing what she loves to do, and is "posing" in the tree she climbed that day. We will get her back to climbing trees with the help of our Lord, the staff at providence Medical Center, and all of us.

(((((((((((hugs)))))))))))

 

PS... I didn't include the picture for apparent reasons, Rosie