The Unexpected and First Day of Fifth Grade

 Thursday, July 31st was Sydney's first day of Fifth grade. July. Seriously. She loves school, so she was plenty happy to go back. This year, she has a new teacher who is from England. Sydney likes her accent.

 

 And I took this one the other day while we were having lunch at Pizza King, just because she's so stinkin' cute!

So, here's the unexpected part. 2 Thursdays ago, Chris had severe upper back pain and started to lose feeling in his legs. He went to the immediate care center, who sent him via ambulance to the hospital. They did an MRI and determined he had a severely herniated disc in his upper back and it was pushing on his spine because it had herniated in towards his spine instead of out, like it usually would. He got transferred to Jewish and the surgeon there told us it is a very risky surgery, he'd have to have bone around his spine removed and rods and pins put back in it's place. So, he had surgery last Tuesday and just got transferred to Southern Indiana Rehab late yesterday. His right leg is especially weak and doesn't work as well as the left, so he's got a leg brace for his right leg. He'll be in rehab 2-3 weeks, they're estimating. So, I've spent a lot of time at the hospital in the last 2 weeks. It felt like a second home. Fortunately, we had lots of visitors.

 This is my all grown up niece, Cali and her step-brother Jake. Cali's mom brought me pop tarts and doritos, a real life saver. My friend Amber also came by and brought me lots of my favorite candy, plus some magaznines, which helped to pass the time.

 When Sydney visited, she'd just sleep

This is the day of surgery. She found herself a nice little place to take a nap. I got NO sleep the night before and thought for sure I'd be crashing too, but I couldn't. The surgery took about 4 hours, but we were out there even longer than that.

So, that's what we've been up to. It really blindsided us and we just couldn't believe it turned into something so serious. But I believe everything happens for a reason and I can already see many fruits coming from this seemingly bad situation, so I just have to trust God that it will all turn out according to His will.