Family Strong.

God never promised us life without challenges. God gave us people to help us through the rough times. The last few years we have huddled together as a family and pushed through all of this. This next week will be nothing different. We will huddle together and support Katana through the surgery and recovery. As part of that we have all shaved our heads or gotten short haircuts to show Katana that she is beautiful no matter what. I know it is not what every family would do but this is what WE do. We didn't ask any ones permission, we aren't seeking any one's approval. All we ask is that if you can't be positive with us then please just step back and let us fight this fight. We are trying to show Katana that this is a positive situation and the last thing we need is negativity breaking in. Our family is stronger than most, our family will never let anything like brain surgery bring us down. We will prevail and we will come out the other side stronger than we are now.

So Katana HATES hospital gowns. She always has. Getting her in them is always a challenge because they show her bottom, who knew a five year old could be so modest. So I started thinking about not wanting to fight that battle since I knew she was going to have an IV and was going to need to be monitored during surgery. So these are my solutions to that issues. Homemade hospital gowns, a simple dress pattern that I turned into cute and fashionable hospital gowns.
Total I made four of these cute little gowns all in bright stylish colors that Katana loves. She is now excited to be spending a week in a hospital gown. She actually wants to wear them around the house and tried to sneak in wearing one to school today. :)

After showing off my work I have been told I could/ should start a business. Well we will have to see what happens after surgery. Right now I'm just working on getting through that. I have never been afraid to try new adventures so we will see what happens next.

And the hair starts coming off.

Katana had a headache yesterday afternoon which of course starts talk about surgery that is quickly coming up. She was scared about shaving her head, not having her surgery. So that was a quick and easy fix. We shaved my head a week early which in turn cured Katana's fear about shaving her head. She is now excited to shave her head and we have had to convince her to wait until next weekend to shave hers. It is a small price to pay to cure her biggest fear. So now Mom and Dad are sporting new hair cuts (along with a few friends and family). I am hoping to post pictures of all of us who have supported Katana by shaving our head the day before or after her surgery. We sure make one beautiful "Katana's Army". 8 days and counting until surgery.

Can we Fast forward.

I am normally the one wanting to slow down time cause my kids are growing up way to fast for me. Today I am really wishing we could fast forward time to the 31st. Katana had a horrible night last night. She hasn't had such a long night in a while. She was up and down last night crying with abdominal pain and a headache that wouldn't go away. Medicine didn't help at all. So after a long night for both me and her I am ready now more than ever for her to have surgery. I am holding out so much hope that her new shunt will make her feel better. Hoping that when they adjust the distal catheter on her shunt it will help with the abdominal pain, her doctor believes that her distal catheter may just not have room to pull freely and is going to try to loosen it up when he does surgery. 25 more days. I feel like a little kid waiting for Christmas morning. The best possible gift I could receive this year would be for Katana to have drastically less pain then she has the last few months. Who in their right mind would ever think as a Mom I would be counting down the days till my daughter underwent surgery but I just can't wait for her to be in less pain.

Another Great appointment.

Yesterday was Katana's MRI which went great. She was put under General Anesthesia which turned out to be more of a blessing than it seemed at the time. Spent Last night at the Ronald McDonald House which was fantastic, spent some time in their downstairs game room unwinding letting the kids play and playing Korey in Air Hockey. It was such a blessing. Got up early this morning and went to see Dr. Igbase. We had another amazing appointment. Her surgery is set for January 31st, first thing in the morning. Since she was put under General Anesthesia yesterday she won't have to go through any pre op testing. So that is why it was more of a blessing then it seemed at the time. Dr. Igbase will have an office day after her surgery so if she has any problems he will be readily available to treat Katana. He is worried that she will have some trouble adjusting to the increase pressure in the right ventricle so he wants to be available if she is needed. He said something today that brought me to tears. He said that while most neurosurgeons won't touch a working shunt as long as the MRI and CT's look ok. He said he isn't treating images on a computer screen he is treating a child. And while her shunt is working it isn't working for her so it need to be changed. This was such a relief for me to finally hear that he wants the same things we do. He wants Katana to feel better. We are so excited with what the next 6 weeks holds for our family. Let the next chapter in our life start.