I love when I relize God knows what He is doing!

Sometime around the first of May I woke up with a big cramp type feeling in my calf on my left leg. I stretched and carried on with my day. As the day went on the pain increased. By the end of that day I couldn’t walk. My leg from the knee down was weak, hurt, and was tingling. Not to mention my toes were Cubbie blue (not exaggerating).

The following day the weakness had gone away and I was able to hobble around. I dropped Memaw off for her last round of treatment (hooray!) and went over to the health center on campus to get my leg checked out (I had a weird feeling that this was more than a pulled muscle). The nurse at the health center sent me to get an ultra sound. When the results of it came back normal I was sent over to North Alabama Bone and Joint Clinic. My lovely friend over at the insurance company informed me that they would not cover my visit to NABJC since this was a non-emergency. If I wanted to be seen I would need to visit my local PCP (primary care physician). Problem: the nearest PCP to me is a little over 1 ½ hours away. Insurance solution: go to the ER to get a referral to NABJC. So $150 later and I am on crutches and have an appointment at NABJC in a week. After x-rays, ultra sounds, and a nerve study, Bone and Joint says “your peroneal nerve is entrapped at the fibular head.” Translation: this nerve on the outside of my left leg is trapped in-between the bone and muscle somewhere around my knee area. Not good. Doc says ultimately surgery is the final answer. We wait a month and let it try and fix itself. One month passes and no change, so we wait another month and no change. We go ahead and schedule surgery for July 5th and mom plans on coming down for the surgery. In the mean time I start going to the Chiropractor for him to try this new therapy called ART (active release technology). Basically he moves around my muscles, bones, ligaments, trying to free the trapped nerve. After several visits with no change I become more and more discouraged that this is going to work. 4 days before I go to surgery mom calls; she has this mommy instinct, that feeling deep down in your gut saying this is a bad idea. So we cancelled the surgery. I have found in my 19 years that when mom says “I just don’t feel right about this” to listen cause she has yet to be wrong. We decide to try a few rounds of cortisone shots.

I go in for my first shot and the visit turns into a nightmare. Bone and Join informs me that I owe them quite a bit of money so they are no longer going to treat me. WHAT?! Come to find out my best friends at insurance are not covering my treatments. WHAT?! Before every appointment I have gone to I have called insurance and they always reassure me that they are covering my care. Bad news bears ladies and germs, bad news bears. After a phone call to nurse mommy things get worked out and I end up getting the shot. After several calls to insurance and a mom who is a miracle worker we get things paid off and get approved for an MRI! GO MOM!

Last Wednesday I got the results from my MRI and everything looks good. No growths, tumors, or anything weird that has caused this “peroneal nerve entrapment at the fibular head”. So that’s good news! I called the doctor on Thursday so we could go ahead and schedule surgery again. I don’t want to be in this pain during school. At this point I can not sit down for more than 10 or 15 minutes with out my lower leg going completely numb. The nurse called my back this morning. The soonest I can have surgery is on the 17th, school starts the 25th. While I was on the phone trying to schedule this surgery it hit me; the devil thinks he is smooth. But in the words of a good friend, “he is about as smooth as sand paper”. When I heard that surgery could not be until the 17th really brought me down. I called mom crying. I don’t want to be in pain for another month and I don’t want to be walking around school in a full knee brace for a few days. After talking to mom (which fixes pretty much everything), she assured me it would all work out. We are trying to have the surgery done sooner in Chicago now. But if that doesn’t work out I will be doing it on the 17th here in Florence.

The last few months have been really hard, emotionally and physically. But I realized today that the stinkin’ devil is just trying to bring me down. With all the trouble with getting into Bone and Joint, Insurance problems, scheduling and canceling surgery, and the ART not working, It’s just the devil trying to bring me down. But in the end everything has worked out. God took care of the insurance, and I know He will bless me with a fast recovery. It has been really hard to see that God has been in control from the start but now I can see that He knew everything before it happened.

Please pray that we can get a surgery date sooner than the 17th, and pray for the doctors hands as they go in to fix the problem. The surgery is simple. With in a month or two I will be back to running, jumping, and normal activity.

Things that make my world good

New shoes

Fall; when you can still wear shorts and flip-flops but need a sweatshirt on too

A cold Dr. Pepper out of the bottle

Gum

A new hat

Windows down, radio up

Road trips

4 wheeling

The smell of a softball field

C.S Lewis quote of the day

A good pen

Random facts

Baseball games

Cookies, when they are still gooey

Flip-flops

Watching Alabama football with the guys

Text messages from my brothers

New netflix movies

Cinnamon rolls

Getting mail

Coffee

The "ah-ha" moments in life

Picking people up from the airport

Reality TV (however fabricated it might be)

T-shirts

What makes you happy?