A Tough Day

Today was tough to say the least. Darein went to her orthopedic doctor here in Springfield for a check up of her scoliosis. We were expecting things to get better and not expecting a very exciting appointment. Needless to say, that didn't happen. Darein was complaining of back pain today and I promised her that I would talk to her doctor about it and see what he said but mostly, she just needed to practice good posture. We made a few jokes about it while waiting and was finally called back. To our disappointment, we were told that her upper and middle curves had gone from under 20 degrees to 32 and 35 degrees and that they would most likely get as high as 60 - 70 degrees and would cause lung problems if we got to that point. She had grown 1 inch in 4 months and her curvatures would only get worse as she continued to grow. Her surgeon has referred her on to Shriners Hospital in St. Louis now and so we received an application to fill out as well as the xray to take with us when we receive our appointment. I will fax the application tomorrow, the doctor's office will call the Shriners hospital tomorrow and let them know to be expecting our application and then they will send Darein's notes from the visit today sometime next week and then we will wait to hear for an appointment.
There are many other factors and things on our plate that we have been dealing with medically with Darein that we now will need to coordinate and regroup. I will be spending time getting all of Darein's specialists on the same page, considering all questions regarding all kinds of questions related to possible surgery and other medical issues and what needs to be rearranged and placed on the back burner, what needs to be coordinated to happen at the same time as surgery and if there are any medication issues. It seems as though the older she gets, the more complicated things get. There are so many more issues and with doctors being here in Springfield, some in Columbia, some in Kansas City and the rest in St. Louis it makes it hard to make sure that the doctors that need to be informed are informed so that we have some continuity of care going on with everyone. This definitely brings a new challenge to our life but we will figure things out and go from here.
I am going to make this post short but will probably be updating more often to keep those interested informed of the progress that is taking place.