The Bountiful Gal - Standing For Truth

One of my favorite movies in the world is 17 Miracles .  I can watch this movie over and over again and still walk away inspired, enlighten and filled with the spirit.  I cry every time I watch it!  A few Sundays ago I had to come home from church because my head was in such a chaotic and sick space.  I decided my Sunday School would be to watch 17 Miracles.  Once again it moved my heart to ask for miracles.   The story of our pioneer ancestors on their trek across the plains of the United States is powerful.  They believed in God.  They believed in the need to worship God.  They came from all over to make it to Salt Lake City.  But just because they believed and came did not mean it would be easy for them.  They had many obstacles to face along the way.  For those who continued each day in faith and trusting God would provide, found miracles comparable to those from the Bible. Here in Utah, many stakes will reenact this t...

The weeks just kind of flew by at the end and I didn't even stay caught up.  After week 8, Abree kept making great improvements.  We were able to fly home a few times to see the family and it didn't seem to affect her healing at all.  By 13 weeks she was able to graduate and come home!!  We got home just in time for Hunter's graduation from high school.   The day we found out she could go home she had a spike of pain.  I immediately was worried and started stressing that going home wasn't the right thing.  But as Abree and I talked about the pain, she was able to realize it was more pain from fear of going home.  It's completely understandable.  For weeks her only focus was learning how to get her pain down and rest.  Coming home meant she had to go back to normal life and actually have responsibilities again.  As she recognized the pain for what it was, fear, she was able to feel a decrease in the pain and move forward. Fear i...

 Somehow I got my weeks all messed up and I got ahead of myself.  Abree officially has completed 8 weeks at the Spero clinic and we are seeing fantastic results!!  She is wearing shoes everyday now without triggering pain and she can walk around for an hour without pain.   This is HUGE!!   She's still pretty tired each day after therapy but she's happy and excited about the improvements she's made.  Last week we introduced her to cold laser treatments in conjunction with her NMR and we really think that the 2 therapies together helped the most with being able to get her wearing shoes.  She had her ups and downs last week with it, which is to be expected.  We've notice that each week we introduce a new therapy she will have a little bit of a flare up the next day.  So last week she would have a good day, then a bad, then a good and then a bad and that's how the week went.  But by Sunday she was feeling really good again and been...

It's been a few weeks and I have lots to catch up on. Week 6 - Zac and I switched places so I'm back in Arkansas and he is back home with the rest of the family.  The week started with a little bit of a flare up. We aren't sure what caused it, but we spent a lot of time at home when we weren't in therapy trying to get it to calm back down.  We are definitely learning that NMR (neuromuscular reeducating) is the key with Abree.  She finds the most success at keeping a zero with this therapy. Mentally week 6 was hard on Abree.  She was discouraged about a flare up in pain but she also realized how much she misses everyone.  Spending all the extra time at home with no distractions was hard on her. She also find out this week all the food issues that she has and needs to cut out of her diet.  She's been dairy free most of her life so it didn't surprise us that was on the list.  We also weren't surprised about gluten as I know that is a pretty inflammatory f...

Abree had a fantastic week last week.  She stayed mainly at 0-1 on the pain scale.  She also was able to go exploring a new little area on Saturday with Zac and it didn't flare her up at all.  We are beyond thrilled at how well she is responding to the therapy! Her favorite therapy is NMR (can't tell you what it stands for because I have no clue).  All I know is the machine works on activating the muscles in the body and teaching the nerves to fire correctly to those muscles, while teaching your to control the response of that muscle.  Hopefully I explained that okay.  It's a pretty intense therapy and she's sore after it, but she said that is where she finds the most relief from her pain and then stays down the remainder of the day.   She also started PIEZO a couple of weeks ago.  It's the therapy focused on breaking down the scar tissue in the body.  After her first day she called me telling me how dirty she felt.  When I asked wh...

It's crazy to think Abree has been gone a month and this Wednesday will be 4 complete weeks at the clinic!  Zac has been out with her these last few weeks.  Here is the update I've had:                 She is loving having one on one time with dad!  They have gone to baseball games, gymnastics meets, singing pitch perfect, and finding the best homes around Fayetteville to go look at. Abree can now officially wear socks with no pain!  Seems silly but for someone with CRPS this is a huge accomplishment.  She can also wear shoes for small amounts of time before the pain starts again.  She has officially accomplished 4 of her goals she set for her self for 4 weeks at the clinic. Wednesday, March 15th was a hard day for Abree.  Zac flew back home to help me with a meet I was hosting this past weekend and my dad went out to stay with Abree.  We aren't sure if her flare up happened from some of the therapy or the s...