Why I've Been Away

Hello my blogging & stamping Friends

I know it has been what seems like ages since I last posted to my blog. We had a little scare with my DD this month and it seems like things are getting a little back to normal. Thanks to those of you who emailed me to see if everything was okay. I appreciate your concern and I appreciate knowing that you all stop here to my little corner of cyberworld often. I have many things in my head that I want to share with you so hopefully with life getting a little more normal I can share some new ideas with you.

Anyway - by now you are probably wondering what it is that has kept me away so long. Well, my DD Sophia for the past few months has been complaining that her ankle is hurting. We took her in May for some X-rays but they came back negative. So we wrote it off as just a sprain or bruise. Well, the pain subsided for a while with her complaining about it off and on. Well the week of the 4th of July there was some swelling and although she was running around and doing what all active 7 year olds do it was still bothering her. Hence, we called the Dr. again and this time he wanted another set of x-ray's but he also wanted some blood work. We went on July 5 for the x-rays which they read right away and still nothing showed. We then went upstairs (we are at the hospital for all of this) for the lab work and waited until the next day for some answers. The nurse called and said they wanted another set of lab work done and that they would probably admit her to the hospital because they wanted to get an MRI. They did the MRI and found 3 spots on her ankle and informed us they needed to do a bone biopsy. They did that and we had to wait 48-72 hours for the results. At this time I was preparing for the worst news - that my DD had cancer. My dad died of a sarcoma type cancer 4 years ago so you can imagine it was was I was expecting the results of the biopsy to be. Thankfully, after spending 5 days in the hospital they let us know that the biopsy showed no cancer and grew no bacteria - however, because of the elevated sed rate and white blood count they think she has a bacterail infection in her bone. The name for it is Osteomyelits. Her presentation of this infection is very atypical which is why all this has stumped the Doctors. She was treated for 2 days in the hospital with IV antibiotics (we nicknamed the IV machine EVIL IVY) - very stong ones that needed to be administered every 8 hours. Sophie has been sent home with a cast on her leg to prevent any breakage since he did put a hole in her ankle for the biopsy. We had to meet with a pediatric infectious disease specialist late last week and he has put her on a 6 month regiem of heavy antibiotics and weekly blood work. Apparently this is a pretty tough bacteria to fight. Yesterday we went back to see the orhtapedic Dr. where he put a new cast on her - NEON PINK with a matching walking boot! And - get this - the new cast is also waterproof so she can still go swimming and salvage some fun out of the rest of her summer. Praise God for his wonderful works and life lessons. Sophie and all of us here have learned so much about the power of pray and how resiliant we can be when we really stick together and pray together. I am so proud of her and how she has handled this whole ordeal.

Sorry for such a long post, but it really is just a nutshell of the story - we are on the mend.

I wanted to share a picture of my beautiful girl which you see above. It is one of the items sent in to Stampin' Up! as a display sample. For those of you who don't know I was chosen to be a display sampler for this year's convention. Unfortunately I cannot attend convention this year, but my work will. I absolutely love this page of Sophie. She is such a great, caring wonderful girl and this page just represents her beauty so well. I did it all in black white and embossed in silver. I used the new "Wanted" stamp set. Sophie loves horses and this set was perfect for doing pages of her.

Oh yes, like my watermark next to the picture? I did it all by myself! I am so proud of it. I have Photoshop 5.0 and I taught myself how to do it. I did a few of them! Fun Fun!!

Keep posted for more items I submitted!

I'll draw for my blog candy today too - for those of you who have been so patiently waiting. I really love hearing how you all organize your stamping spaces! Very interesting reads and ideas. Thank you all who responded. So - next post I will draw my winner!

Have a splendid day!!