Natalie Back Update

Tonight we were at Willie's Icehouse and Grill Restaurant for Eric's school's fundraiser night called "Willie's Night". Patrick had come from piano lessons for the two of them, and I had come from home. After work today, I picked up Alex late, drove home, went for a run, then met them at the restaurant. Alex had too much homework and he was actually already sitting down and working on it, so I offered to order food for him and bring it home.

This is a picture of Eric and Natalie "pretending" to get along. I put that in quotation marks because the two of them usually get along, but sometimes Natalie likes to stir up some drama and pretend she doesn't get along with her brother. At first they were going to pose as if they didn't get along, but Patrick persuaded them to be "nice". Natalie loves to tell Eric, "I'm your favorite sister." Instead of humoring her, Eric can't just say, "Yes" or "Yes, you're my favorite sister." He always has to add, "You're also my least favorite sister."

Natalie had another appointment with the doctor about her back this morning. She hasn't gone to see him in a long time, but she has continued with physical therapy at least once a week. Unfortunately, her physical therapist said that the exercises and therapies that Natalie has responded to in the past don't seem to be working now. She is the one who suggested that we go ahead and see Dr. R again. On exam, Dr. R concluded that her core is stronger than it was before, but her core still needs to be stronger than that. He doesn't know what is going on, and since it has been more than a year and a half since Natalie had back X-rays and MRI, he ordered more imaging. Her appointment to get those done is this coming Friday.

It has been two years since she first injured her back, and it has been a very long journey. Patrick and I feel so helpless and we both wish we could do more to take her pain away. For the first time, she has started mentioning maybe not swimming in high school, which hurts my heart, because she used to have such a "fire" in her when it came to her love for swimming. The problem is that she still wants to do some sort of activity, even if it's not swimming, but every activity involves her using her back. It's just not fair that there are so many inactive people out there, but here is one kid who wants to be active, but can't be active. Sigh. Eric includes Natalie in his prayers every night.

On a lighter note, after we finished dinner at Willie's, Patrick took Eric home and Natalie and I stopped off at Academy, since it was nearby to Willie's. She and I both need some new socks. She stated that she recently discovered that none of her socks have a matching sock. She has worn mismatching socks for years, so this fact was not obvious. We both picked out some new pairs, but I thought it was interesting that I picked out brighter pairs than my thirteen year old daughter. The two packages on the left are my socks, and the two on the right are Natalie's. I guess I just like brighter colors than she does. It was nice, though, to see her smiling and joking around with me while we shopped. I miss my carefree baby girl, and I hope and pray I get her back one day soon.