I made it through the twelve weeks!  It feels pretty surreal.  There were so many times that it felt like this season was lasting forever.  

We met with my surgeon this past Thursday.  The appointment could not have went any better.  The fusion is looking good for 3 months in and he's already seeing bone growth where the vertebrae will ultimately become one.  He said that I no longer needed to wear the hard brace and that unless I felt like I needed a soft one I could go with no brace.  I have been without a brace since Thursday before lunch.   It feels so good to have it off.  There are times where I wonder how my neck will respond doing an activity with no brace but so far so good.  My body is still getting used to not sleeping in the brace which has resulted in waking up at different times in the night.

He said that I no longer have a weight restriction but I need to ease back into things and to let pain be my guide.  If I lift something and it hurts then I need to stop it immediately.  He did give me the green light to be able to pick up my girls for the first time.  It felt so good to be able to pick them up and hug them when I came home from work on Thursday.  It has also allowed me to help parent the girls and to help with bedtime again and to pull my weight as a parent.

The doctor said that I can start driving again.  We are going to ease into this as well.  Today I drove in a parking lot and some side streets and I felt comfortable.

PT has started becoming more challenging and I'm starting to do mobility exercises on my neck daily.  I was pretty sore this weekend with the increased activity but it didn't stop me from having a blast at my three year old's birthday party (pic attached).

I'm definitely not back to normal yet but Thursday was such a meaningful day for our family.  God is so good!

I'm still working through the nerve trauma in my right hand and my right shoulder.  It feels like both are better than last week but they still have a long way to go.  I was able to shuffle a deck of cards this weekend when I wasn't able to do that in the past.

I'm going to post updates until I've had a full recovery but they probably won't be as frequent from this point further.  I'm hopeful that by the end of the year or sooner that I don't feel any different on a day to day basis because of my injury.

Thank you so much for your prayers, encouragement and tangible ways you have served our family!

Steve