Friday evening Ceci and I were pretty wore out from the drive home and her appointment in Peoria.
We came home spent some time with our family, grabbed some dinner and got ready for bed.
I was feeling pained because the table they needed sis to get to was tall and I pulled something in my right shoulder blade carrying her back to her wheelchair.
Something that happens sometimes when lifting our girl, so I knew the best thing for me to do is to take a hot Epsom salt bath, soak my muscles and then take a muscle relaxer and try to rest to allow it to heal.
I finished giving sis her medications, running her IV fluids, her nightly checks and got her comfy for the night. Shortly after I kissed our boy’s goodnight as they played the Nintendo Switch, watched tv and enjoyed some junk food – glad that it was Friday and there was no school in the morning.
Dad was reading one of his beloved Arrowhead and Survival books (he lives for the outdoors like the rest of us 😊 ) in bed and I fell asleep shortly after 10 pm.
I was still asleep due to the calming affects of my muscle relaxer when I heard Aiden in the background of our bedroom telling his dad that there was a strange man beating down the front door.
Shawn flew up the stairs with Aiden as I started to wake and sit up in bed. I waited to hear what was going on, hoping it was not a family emergency. Soon after more banging- the kind of banging someone does when there’s an emergency or something has gone wrong.
I was very surprised because Shawn had not opened any doors with this all going on, so I knew something was not right. I quietly came up the stairs to find the kids in the hallway between Ceci’s bedroom and the front room and my husband standing next to the door.
He told me there was a large man, dressed in all black hitting the front door over and over again carrying a large shovel. And when I say hitting the front door. I mean banging it down. It has not knocking.
It was 10 minutes until midnight, and I knew he was not there to shovel anyone’s snow. Besides our sidewalks had been shoveled and his intentions were not good.
We have a front door that I have wanted to replace for years. It has a large glass window instead of all steel, and as someone that had their house broken into when I was a girl it has always made me feel uncomfortable. So, knowing that this man was beating against the glass repeatedly made me feel sick to my stomach.
I ran to call 911 as Shawn stood by the door waiting to see what would happen.
Thankfully the man finally took off, but not before waking everyone up and giving us all quite a scare.
Several police officers arrived shortly after and started canvasing the area but were unable to find the person. We found out that there had been several car break ins the past few weeks with the proximity of our neighborhood so the police were not as surprised as I thought they would be about this all.
Needless to say, we are a bit spooked by the entire incident and the kids did not sleep well at all after this.
I slept on the couch and dad stayed up half the night as well checking the back yard and the front of our home.
I’m a little frustrated with myself. A few years ago, we invested in a video doorbell to help protect our home, but it went out about 6 months ago and I never had the money to replace it. It would send us motion notifications every time someone approached the front door and would start recording video footage as well.
We had been hoping to save up to replace it and also install a flood light camera and siren in our backyard since it is very big, but we just have not been able to save for either.
The officer asked me if we got recording of the man but of course I had to say no. Now I wish that we would have saved up and replaced it sooner. We have talked about also getting some Arlo cameras for our property to cover the sides of our home and the extended back yard. A few years ago, our neighbors’ home was broken into across the alley and they did this. We should have as well ☹
It has been a rough few days. Ceci did not sleep well last night, Aiden wanted to stay up half the night because his anxiety is getting the better of him, Nicholas ended up climbing in bed with us- because he does not feel comfortable sleeping in his room alone again and I could not fall asleep until nearly 1 am because my mind is racing.
We are very lucky that nothing else happened that night but trying to explain to your kids that everything is fine is harder than it sounds. I am very grateful that God was protecting our family. It has a scary ordeal for sure, but we are okay. It’s going to take some time for everyone to feel safe again, but we are okay ❤
Ceci’s testing from Friday was neither all good news nor bad. We have to wait on the final report from the Radiologist, because she needs to compare all her results on Friday to the results from before her big scoliosis surgery and also the past few years.
What we do know is that Ceci’s bladder size has shrank along with the capacity she’s able to hold before getting sick.
Before her scoli surgery and the repeated spinal infections last year, her bladder was normal shape and was able to hold 315 ml’s of fluid without any problems. Now her bladder is very small and is only able to hold around 150 ml’s before she is in too much pain and feels ill.
It doesn’t tell us everything we need to know but it does tell us that things are very different now.
We will wait for the final report which should hopefully be in next week and go from there.
Please pray for our girl. We appreciate prayers very much right now.
Ceci has her 1st appointment with Dr. Lockwood in March from University of Iowa and I think I am going to call on Monday and see if there is any way possible, they could get her in sooner. She really, really needs a urologist now. We need to show them all this testing and see what needs to be done for our girl. It is the worst thing in the world to have to play the waiting game all the time. I really hope they can get her in sooner.
We head back to Peoria again this Tuesday for Ceci’s next set of appointments. She will be seeing Neuropsychology to be evaluated and tested to see how much impact her repeated brain surgeries and spinal infections have had to her neuro status.
We know our sweet girl has short term memory loss from the repeated Neuro surgeries and we hope that is all.
Please pray on this as well. Thank you, friends. ❤
We’ll be back sooner than later.
Lots of Love and Hugs to you all,
Alexis, Cecilia Marie and Our Special Family
~ Spina Bifida Fighters and Survivor~
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