Happy New Year {2014}

I just realized I haven't blogged since Oct. 28th! Oops. I'll do a round up for November and December soon but I wanted to wrap up the year and post the top 5 memorable moments of 2013.

They're not all happy moments, but when I think about all of 2013 these are the 5 things that come to mind.

1. In January after returning home from Vegas I went to bend down and get a package out of the mail box and totally killed my back. It was obviously weak and would have happened sooner or later, but I spent the better part of 2013 trying different things to get relief. For 3 months I went to AFC Chiropractic and after about 6 weeks my back pain was gone. Well shortly after began the sciatic pain down my leg and that is what I dealt with all year. In April I found out I have a 8mm herniated disc. I was then referred to another chiropractor to receive spinal decompression treatments and tried massage therapy as well. After no change, I went to see a spine surgeon who referred me to Arizona Back Pain Institute for injections (if that didn't work he recommended surgery). Well before the ABPI will do injections they wanted me to take oral steroids, do more PT, and try an inversion table. He also ordered a CT scan of my legs because he noticed my knees were off. I tried all of that and still no improvement and I went back to have him look over my CT results. He noticed my left leg is 9mm shorter than my right and told me to get a heel lift. I would have never believed after spending close to $4000 and dealing with pain for 10 months a simple $5 heel lift would be the answer to my problems. Seriously. I've been wearing them about 2 months now and about 95% of the time I am pain free. Some days when I haven't been wearing them enough I feel a little pain but nothing like before. I can't believe it was a simple heel lift that fixed it all.

2. In May, Josh and I celebrated 10 years of marriage by going on our first cruise to the Caribbean. We went to Cozumel, Belize, Isla Roatan and Grand Cayman. We had such a wonderful time but the highlight was definitely zip lining. What a thrill! I am so thankful to be married to my best friend. Josh is such a hard worker and so patient with me. It's crazy to think we've been married 10 years, have 2 sweet little girls and have been blessed tremendously along our journey. I can't wait for the next 10 years!

3. For my 30th Birthday Josh surprised me with a trip to Vegas. He even pretended to go to work like normal but when he heard me wake up he came upstairs and said "pack your bags, your Mom is coming to watch the girls and we're leaving for Vegas." I was so shocked. I can't believe he pulled it off, I don't think anyone has ever surprised me like that. We had a wonderful time.

4. While in Maui Haylee started acting strange. I thought maybe it was dehydration, lack of sleep or just being off her routine and out of school. She started to get worse while on October break and I was referred to a psychologist who mentioned her symptoms sounded like PANDAS and to have her tested right away. Thankfully her doctor agreed to order the blood work right away. As expected her levels were elevated and she was given antibiotics right away. She was one of the very few, lucky ones who completely recovered and that is thanks to Dr. Allen and Dr. Beth and getting Haylee on antibiotics quickly. It was seriously the craziest thing I have ever seen. It was a very depressing, difficult time for all of us but thankfully after 3 1/2 weeks she was back to her normal self. Although her levels are still higher than normal, her sudden, extreme OCD behavior has never returned. I owe it all to the healing from our Heavenly Father and the many prayers said on Haylee's behalf. She will be seeing a Neurologist soon to discuss her elevated aso titer levels but we're hopeful it's nothing serious.

5. In September we welcomed Kona into our family. Of course she came at a horrible time (right in the middle of all the chaos with Haylee) and being a puppy she was anything but a good girl so it was rough at first. She's gotten so much better and we really love having her in our home. She is such a sweet, beautiful girl and she reminds us of our sweet little Jackson. We know he sent her to us and not a day goes by we don't think of Jackson and miss him.

2013 was a good year despite health problems for Haylee and I. Josh has a wonderful job, I'm able to work from home and use my income for traveling (and medical bills) and the girls are doing great in school and growing up fast. We got a new car this year (well 2 actually), we traveled quite a bit and were able to make so many memories with the girls!  Here's hoping 2014 is even better and we're all in great health!