The Sweet End of a Different Journey

I know. I started a blog about the fire. I started a blog so you could all see the progress we're making on the house and our journey back home.

But...guess what?

THERE IS NO PROGRESS!!

Okay, that is not entirely true. But it feels like there is no progress. Because they just keep knocking stuff down and busting things out and tearing apart my house. They are not putting anything back together yet. And it is depressing.

I am tired. And sick. Sick and tired of the house and the fire and the whole flippin' mess. Done. Just so done.

But that's okay, because today we got a little break from the sick and tired. We got SNOW!! It wasn't much, but that's okay too. It was enough to get out the snow tubes.

The snow tubes took on a special meaning today. How special? Check this out. Follow me on a little journey through the last year and a half.

Once upon a time, a teenage girl went rollerskating. She did the splitz. On roller skates. With a hip condition we did not know she had. It is called SCFE, for slipped capital femoral epiphysis. It essentially means the ball of the hip was slipping off of the femur at the growth plate, or epiphysis. It was slipping ever so slowly without our knowledge, then she fell, and it slipped right on off of there, like this:

Severe Unstable SCFE

There was a terrible ambulance ride. Lots of morphine. Wonderful orthopedic surgeon. Grim prognosis. He said "this is the most severe form we see. This is a serious emergency. She probably won't keep that hip. She won't walk for a long time." An hour and a half later, my sweet girl returned from surgery with her new hardware installed.

Stable SCFE

We went home and made every possible effort to save that hip. She went home and made every possible effort not to save that hip. She swung like a monkey on her crutches. She refused her wheelchair. She hopped, stomped, stood on tables and crawled across the floor- anything to drive me mad. One simple fall and she would have ended up with a total hip replacement at the ripe old age of 13.

Tuna broke her hip in August of 2010. By February of 2011, she was in physical therapy. She had been non-weight bearing for 6 months. She learned to walk again in less than a month. She was outraged that I would not let her go snow tubing. She assured me she could 'crawl' back up the snow-covered hill and that she couldn't possibly get hurt. Ab. So. Lutely. Not. Hells to the no. 

Tuna has been waiting for snow for a whole year. I promised her, this year, she could go snow tubing. I actually laughed out loud when I saw her zip down the hill. She has made it well past the one-year mark and her hip looks great. The bone has maintained blood flow. There is no sign of avascular necrosis. She walks with no limp. She runs. She snow tubes!

Tuna, Our 'Skiffy' 

She is sweet awesomeness! That was one rough journey and we made it to the other end in one piece. If we walked that walk, we can walk this one too, this fire. We can make it to the other end in one piece. Next year, when we go snow tubing, we'll journey back to our new kitchen to have hot chocolate in our new mugs  and then we'll curl up in our new family room, in our old, cozy home.