Bell Ringing

 

Sierra rang the bell today to signify the end of her treatment.It was such a wonderful experience. We were blessed to have many of our family and friends attend and show support to Sierra. Throughout this whole experience we have been blessed to have the most loving and generous people surrounding us all, offering support through meals, or childcare, and especially through prayers. All of you have helped to buoy us up and encouraged us to be able to meet all of these challenges and conquer them. THANK YOU!

 

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Finished

Sierra has been doing amazing in the last few weeks since her surgery. She was hospitalized for a week, a few days longer than the doctors had predicted, but exactly what we had planned for. I feel like we were so blessed with Sierra's lung surgery experience and I know it was because of all of the prayers being said for her. She had an epidural that worked perfectly for the first few days, allowing her to get over the hump of the worst pain from surgery. She had no complications and never required oxygen after coming off anesthesia(though she wore the cute penguin oxygen mask just for fun). Sierra used oral pain medications for the first few days after coming home from the hospital, but by day 10 post-op she hasn't needed anything at all. She went back to school on day 12 post-op and has been so happy to begin getting back to a normal routine. Sierra will have her 3 month follow up scans at some point in February, until then she only has to go into the clinic once a month to have her port flushed, and once she has her scans, and they come back clean, we can schedule to have her port removed. We will travel to Portland again in January to work with the prosthetist and physical therapist to get her on her finished leg. She hasn't been doing a whole lot of work with her prosthesis lately, but now that we have no other medical stuff to worry about we are back to focusing on exercising and practicing walking. She has moments where she works very hard, and then has moments where she just wants to be able to walk again, I can't imagine how she feels as an 8 year old who wants to do so much, but feels so limited. She doesn't let things hold her back as much as possible, and is very adaptable about most things, but I do see her get frustrated from time to time that she can't do the things she wants, or that she always has to ask for help. Hopefully over the next few months, she will be back to walking and will be able to be more independent. Tomorrow is a very big day for her as well, as she will be ringing the bell at the Children's Hospital. This is a special rite of passage for all of the sweet kiddos that go through treatment and she has looked forward to it since all of this started. I will be taking lots of pictures, and video, and will post them tomorrow.

 For now we are looking forward to the holidays together as a family, and are feeling so blessed to have Sierra here with us.

Family picture from our trip to see Christmas lights at the Coeur d'Alene hotel

Love this girl and her sweet smile