Welcome to our CaringBridge website. Cara and I (Karen) are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you so much for visiting.
Tonight (Sunday, 1/27/2019) we finished last minute packing for tomorrow's flight to Rochester, MN, and Tuesday's appointment at Mayo Clinic -- deemed by many to be the world's premiere medical diagnostic facility. What an incredible blessing to have been so quickly accepted/scheduled (and even moved up a month from the original appointment!) We are hoping and praying the doctors here will be able to give us answers and help for Cara where no one else has.
As you may know, Cara has been inexplicably sustaining very serious injuries from normal daily activities like turning to close her car door and tugging on a public restroom door. Since September, she has sustained six compression fractures in her spine and a subtle fracture of a rib. Each fracture has been incredibly painful on its own, but the cumulative result has been constant, debilitating pain and muscles spasms. Despite consulting several doctors and having a series of X-rays and MRI's, no one has been able to help us understand why this is happening or given her any course of treatment other than prescribing increasingly powerful pain meds. Beginning in October, Cara obviously needed daily support to be able to continue working and to deal with the routines of life (cooking/laundry/driving, etc). At that point, I asked her to consider temporarily moving back home so I could help her. Soon it was clear that even with daily help, Cara's condition was not improving and "temporarily" was not going to be as short a time period as we had both thought. By Christmas, it was clear that Cara's condition was so fragile she really could not continue working and needed care 24/7.
The situation is dire, but both Cara and I are sustained by our faithful, merciful Father whose gentle presence has carried us through many long sleepless nights and difficult days. Our shared faith has been a precious rock in this powerful storm. And we are so humbled by the love and support so many of you have given us as you've come alongside us in our weakness and need. Thank you!
We want to bring you with us on this journey to the Mayo, so read on!
CaringBridge is a nonprofit social network dedicated to helping family and friends communicate with and support loved ones during a health journey. Learn more about CaringBridge.
