Family Forever

Chapter 1

Family Forever - Chapter 1

It is three days before Sophie's big hip surgery. I am surprisingly not scared about going under and having the surgery done because I know that it will help me a lot. I am more scared for the IV. I am so scared of needles; you don't even want to know how scared I am of them. Kevin and Dani have been great through the whole time my hip has hurt. I don't know what I would do without them.

Kevin is in his office doing some paperwork. He has a lot of work to get done before he leaves for the surgery. There is a tour coming up that he has to prepare for and now Sophie wants a Caring Bridge website. "Sophie," Kevin said as he walked out of the office with his laptop.

"Yea, what do you need," Sophie asked.

"Well, I was thinking, and I thought it wouldn't be so bad to have a Caring Bridge website."

"Really," Sophie squealed. "I never thought you would agree to do it."

"Well, I decided it wouldn't be such a bad thing to do, plus it can keep family and fans updated on it, so we won't have to call anyone either."

"Well, that is the Point of Caring Bridge," Sophie said. "So, when are we going to set it up?"

"How about now," Kevin said as he was already logging into the website.

"This is so exciting," Sophie exclaimed.

I went in and set up an account for us to have. Under mine and Dani's name since it said that you have to be at least 18 to sign up for it. Once I was signed up, it popped up a website page. "Here it is, Sophie," I said as I showed her the computer screen to which she squealed in delight. I went up to site settings and filled out more information. I put in that she was having surgery and that she was a teen. After that I put in that she was going to be at Shriners Hospitals for Children in Huston. I then hit the save button and it took me to another page that said style. I again turned the computer towards Sophie. "Sophie, do you want to look at styles for your website."

"Yea, I don't like any of those. I want a dog."

"Okay, let's see if we can find a dog for you," I said as I looked through the many pages of styles. I found a dog style on the second page. I chose that one and went on to look at the other pages and they didn't have any more dogs. "Sophie, it looks like they have one dog one, a golden retriever, like Elvis. Is that okay?"

"Yea," Sophie exclaimed as our newest addition to our family, Riley jumped on Sophie's lap. Riley was a late Christmas present for Dani and Sophie. She is a Yorkie. She was so sweet and adorable.

I was just getting ready to type Sophie's background story into Caring Bridge, when the alarm went off indicating it has been three hours and someone needs to change Sophie. Sophie got so many diaper rashes and she still gets them sometimes, but it has gotten a lot better in the past month. We also change her whenever she has a BM right away. We figured out that was one cause of a diaper rash.

When we got back downstairs, I went over to the laptop and typed in the background story:

Sophie was born with dislocated hips. At 18 months of age doctors surgically tried to put her hips in but were not able to. Over the years the cushion on top of her right femur bone appears to have worn off and Sophie now has bone on bone pain. The solution is to utilize a procedure called an "Osteotomy" in which the top of the femur is cut and turned away from the pelvis and reattached with plates and screws so that the femur bone will not touch the pelvis in the future. This procedure has been around for many decades and was widely used until hip replacement surgery was developed. Dr. Jeffery Ackman will perform the surgery on both hips on February 16 at Shriners Hospital for Children in Huston. Total surgery time is expected to be about six hours, and recovery time in the six to eight-week range, similar to two broken legs without the casts! If all goes well Sophie may be able to go home on the weekend. We appreciate your thoughts and prayers as Sophie begins her long journey to recovery.