It's been a year!

Well, here it is 1 year from the accident.  It's been a very long, hard year, but there have been many tender mercies that we have all seen and experienced.  Kauri is doing well.  She still struggles with back pain, as well as horrible stomach aches.  She has learned to work with them, and not let them control her.  Her faith and determination are great examples in everything she does.  Things aren't easy, but she doesn't let it stop her.  She still struggles a lot with her Brain Injury.  She says sometimes she doesn't feel like the same person.  Some of her personality traits are way different than the Kauri that got in the car that day.  But we love the new Kauri.  Whether it all comes back or not, as we all work to adjust to the changes, we will continue to realize we walk softer, and appreciate all that we have, and have learned through this experience.  Thanks for all the love, support, prayers and caring you have given us all.  We have felt the love and prayers of many.  We hope we can always strive to bless others lives as you have ours.

16th Birthday Luau

Savanna's Tea Party

4 wheelin'

Ugly Sweater

New Niece, Zoie

Kauri and Lexi

Going to Prom.  They were in the same group.

Prom

With Darcie

 From family fun, as usual, to a great trip to Florida, and climbing palm trees (a little), basketball, a new neice, 16th surprise party luau, getting a drivers license, scooter riding, a great Christmas, pickles, girls camp, missionary week, Youth Conference,  first date, Harry Potter castle, snorkling, tea party, learning to play the guitar, taking 1st place in the Mountain Jam basketball tournament, Temple, zip lining over aligators, group date with Jarom, Cancer walk,  Volley Ball, SBO Officer, Relay for life, the cabin, finances, lots of homework,  sleeping, reading, and many laughs and tears, it has been a busy, very difficult and certainly memorable year.

Chocolate fight with Savanna

Girls Camp 2012

Up to Date....

We aren't updating as much, because things are just still the same, pretty much, but now one good note.  Kauri had her blood test Thursday, Nov. 10th, and her levels are down a lot.  Her lipase is 267 and her amylase is 70 which is in the norm.  So just a bit more for the lipase, but we are so happy about that.

Still Kauri isn't better by any means.  She has chronic stomach pains, with a lot of digestion problems.  It's been really rough for her.  She never had these pains all the time was on TPN with Marty, because she wasn't eating.  We haven't figured anything out, if it's too much fat, or what.  It just hurts bad.  Some times she has to just hunch over for a while to get through it.  We're really going to pay attention to the whens, so we can do more testing and what for in a couple of weeks.

Great news... Kauri made the Viewmont Basketball team.  She is so excited.  We asked her how she can play with these terrible stomach problems, but she wants to.  She loves basketball and wants so much to get back to her normal life.  She gives her all and endures.  We hope she's not doing too much, but it's so good for her mental and emotional health to exercise and play ball.

Kauri is loving being in school.  She is meeting so many nice people each day, plus getting back involved with her friends, has really been good for her.  It hasn't been so easy.  We are struggling with the mess of the Home-Hospital program that the district approved her for.  The teachers were somewhat workable, but they are still expecting her to do a lot of back work (that she didn't know she had), and she's trying to get that done, and stay caught up with this new term, all the while still struggling with concentration, memory retention and those kind of things from her tbi, as well as just starting out as a new student, in a new school, with so many new people.  So it's been tough.  I don't think we would have done this route had we known it didn't work real well.  The principal at Viewmont did mention she had been done a disservice, and that the program didn't work for her, and I certainly had to agree.  (That was after a couple of hours of talking to him on the phone and visiting with him at school.)  So school hasn't been so easy.  Mom has spent hours with Kauri at school, still working with her, and the school.  It's been overwhelming.

Kauri's Dr visits have become less and less, and to tell the truth, no one is missing them.  They still are there, but it's nice to be slowing down.

Kauri, after basketball practice.  She didn't want to wear her shoes outside and these are the shoes she wore to school
It's good you can be cute, no matter!  :)

First Day of School!

Finally, the first day of school is here.  Kauri was a bit nervous about it.  She being the only one at school who was having their first day of High School, wondering if she'd know where all her classes are, just all that unexpected stuff.  She missed out on experiencing that with all her friends and classmates, as well as so much else, so there was a lot of feelings going on.  She was worried about her stomach as well.  But went with a smile on her face, leaving fear here at home. 

Tying a knot, and hanging on

Kauri had her labs done last week, on Tuesday, the 25th.  After two weeks, they've gone down a whopping 100.  Yes, it's good they're coming down, but it's so slow.  She went from 769 to 653, on her Lipase, and her amylase went down better from 150 to 121.  The normal is 30-110, so that is getting there, but her amylase never was super high.
We are so excited they are coming down, but she has a lot of pain.  It's pretty regular.  Pretty much when she eats.  Those weeks she didn't eat, she never had stomach pain.  Now, 3 weeks after the PICC line is removed, she has tons of pain.  It's so hard for us to see it, and worries us, but as Kauri puts on her beautiful smile, and she herself tries to not focus on it, we just keep on keeping on.  It's hard though for her.  She will hunch over in pain, that at times she has said is a 9 on the pain scale.  10 being the worst.  She smiles and says, "but mostly the pain is a 3-5".  That still is hard on us, to know she's not out of the woods yet.  But if her spirit and attitude helps anything, we shouldn't be on the down hill side of this. We all hope so much she can quit having so much pain.  That pain also leads to other things that complicate this whole situation as well.
Kauri's spirit is good, she excited to get back to living, and is being tough about her stomach.  She's amazing!

Hanging in there!

So slowly but surely, Kauri had gotten the okay from each dr to go ahead with basketball. Today we went to our Family Dr to get her sports physical. It was supposed to be quick tip ended up talking longer. While we were waiting we thought a flu shot would be good. So after that, and the visit with the Dr. Mom asked him about this bump on Kauri's leg. It had been there since the accident. Mom and Annika had cleaned most of the road rash and got rocks out of it. But still this one scar looked weird. Kauri said it was no big deal, that nothing was wrong. The Dr. Started scraping and heard weird scratching. It was glass! It wouldn't come out so he grabbed the nurse and needles and they preformed a little glass-ectomy. :). But the little visit turned into more stuff. Kauri is such a good sport. We didn't get her labs done because we had to rush to the school to get her homework turned in. They gave her a lot more!

Kauri has had fun getting out a bit. She went swimming with the family over UEA

The PICC Line is OUT!

Nancy, the Home Nurse came at 8:00 this morning to take the PICC line out!  Tanner was really excited, because she had said he could help her do it.  He was so afraid he would be at school.

Nancy let Tanner pull the PICC line out

The Team!

She's free!

Nurse Nancy...

Tanner has taken good care of Kauri through all of this.

Now it's time to remove Mom's wrist band.
She's worn it since they had her put it on in the hospital.
She wore it for 75 days!  She was keeping it on until the
PICC line was taken out.

She's free.
People would ask her if she really liked Cherry Hills or Lagoon
or amusement parks, so she just kept the band on.
We know they can stay on for a LONG time!

Kauri Can Eat Party!!!

So tomorrow, October 11th, we are having a Kauri can eat party.  There have been so many nice people who have wanted to bring Kauri treats and food, but since she couldn't eat for 8 weeks, and then has had to be careful, we decided to have a party, so anyone who wanted to come visit and bring some food, it would be a fun opportunity.
So anyone who wants to come, we'd love to have you.  We didn't know how to invite people, especially since it's snuck up on us, so we did it on Facebook and email and text.  We hope anyone who might want to come has heard about it.

We're getting there!

Today Kauri had her labs drawn.  It's still slow.  Her lipase is went down from 810 to 769.  We still want less than 220.  Her amylase went down from 159 to 150.  We still want that under 110.   But it's still good. We went to her new GI specialist at Primary Children's.  She's a fun Dr.  She asked lots and lots of questions, and reviewed the last 10+ weeks.  She thinks her pancreatitus created a biochemical elevation of her lipase and amylase (okay, all you smarties, does that makes sense?  Because we are trying to word it how she said it.  Even though it's written down, we weren't sure how exactly to express it in the right wording.)  Anyway, that means were just going to work on it through a different angle.

So the 1st thing...

She gets to lose her PICC line!  Marty has kind of left her life the last week, but he's still been by her side in her room.  But now he is officially going.  So hopefully later tonight the Home Health nurse will come and take it out!  YEAH!!!!  

Dr. O'Gorman teaching us more about the Pancreas,
and what approach we are going to take now.

The Dr. told her to get out and start playing Basketball!  Now of course, she can't really do it yet, because she isn't cleared on her wrist, but she could go and get working out!  Kauri smiled so big! 

Katie and Kauri

One Happy Girl!
(almost feeling normal)

2nd thing... She needs to take Pancreatic supplements

3rd thing... She needs to take Zantac to help block the acid that is probably a part as well.

4th thing... Low Fat Diet  (That begins after her Kauri can eat party tomorrow!)

5th thing.... 2-3 liters of liquid daily.