2015 Cautiously Optimistic

"Cautiously Optimistic" It's a little phrase that my dad coined for me one day that I've been running around saying for the past couple years. During physical therapy in Colorado I would get told every now and then that I should be more excited over a milestone being met. My response was always along the lines, "I am VERY excited but I don't want to get too far ahead of myself because I have a track record". (I guess it also doesn't help that I'm the type of person who contains their excitement within.) But to be honest, I don't have a very good track record with these shoulders/shoulder blades of mine staying good for any length of time; because of this, it is very hard to have things going really well where you start thinking of things you might be able to do in X amount of months (ex: drive, school, work) and then one day your body rebels and there is a major setback which nine times out of ten has resulted in surgery. This has happened way too many times and it's a hard bullet to bite. So 'Cautiously Optimistic' is the way I have been approaching things. I am hopeful things will get better. I just don't want to get too far ahead of myself; loss is hard when things don't go according to plan.

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To briefly recap, January 28, 2015 I had surgery in Minnesota by Dr. E to reattach four of my muscles that had detached. Dr. E also stabilized my scapula by using an Achilles tendon allograft (cadaver tissue) and attaching it to multiple spinous processes (back of vertebrae). This was my only option to stabilize my scapula since I wasn't a candidate for a scapular fusion due to my shoulder joint being unstable. I am so grateful that I ended up in Dr. E's care. He's an out of the box thinker and without him I don't know what we would have done for my scapula. Signing consent for this surgery was taking a leap of faith. This surgery had never been done on anyone before and I was giving consent to be the first. Before surgery we knew if someone took their thumb to shove my scapula in towards my spine and held it in this very specific position I gained a lot of motion and my strength improved. The stabilization aspect of the surgery with the graft was to essentially act as somebody's thumb. Knowing this, we were all very hopeful that this surgery would prove to be very beneficial and help restore some function.

Post-op January 28, 2015

It was the hardest recovery process I had ever been through. That recovery

was the first time I ever thought I can't do this and wanted to give up.

Let me tell you, that's an awful feeling. 

It's ridiculously hard when you're in the middle of all the chaos and can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. When you do see improvements though, I can't begin to tell you how exciting that is.

Pictures pretty much sum things up. The surgery has helped a ton.

In all of these pictures I have my elbow bent and I'm pushing the wall. 

On May 20, 2015 my mom and I started the drive out west to beautiful Colorado so I could begin the rehabilitation process with my team of physical therapists for my left scapula. In Fall 2014 they're the ones who figured out how to hold my scapula and I was excited to start working with them again. During one of the many hours in the car with my mom, I remember telling her at one point that I hope we get to meet/communicate with more people. One of the things we've learned over the past several years of traveling is if you talk to anybody long enough, and people are honest/open up to you, you will see that everybody has some sort of obstacle in life that they're trying to overcome.

For the past three years we have always stopped at this tiny restaurant right over the Colorado border called Lucy's; we stumbled upon it accidentally in 2013. Now it has become our go to place for breakfast before we start the drive to Denver. For the past three years we have had the same exact waitress. This year we got to talking and the next thing I knew I was writing down Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and Marfan's Syndrome on a napkin. It turns out our waitress's son was being evaluated for a suspected connective tissue disorder. It was a small world kind of moment. When our waitress told us what connective tissue disorder her son's doctors were looking into, both my mom and I said, "We know exactly what that is." The look on her face was shock. I am one of those people who believes that there is reason why certain people come into your life; whether it be for 5 minutes or 100 years. Our waitress looked at us and said we're the only ones that she has talked to that has an understanding of what she and her son are going though. There's a lot of times when dealing with these medical things that you feel completely alone and like nobody understands. Speaking for myself, it is an amazing feeling when you DO find somebody that has an understanding of what you're going through.

It wasn't too colorful on May 22nd. It was cold, gray, and rainy but I was

so relieved to be back in Colorado because my body feels so much better

in their climate. 

Where we go for breakfast

When we arrived in Denver the gray clouds were there too making the mountains really difficult to see. I'll admit I was really bummed because I always look forward to watching the sunset behind the Rockies while eating a piece of pie from down the street. I won't complain though. Out of all of our trips to Colorado this was the first time we didn't see the sunset. The next day we drove to our final destination; Vail, CO. Now, what kind of road trip would it be if my mom and I didn't encounter any snow? That's right! It wouldn't be one. Good thing it decided to snow. It made our road trip complete.

Fortunately the snow didn't last the entire drive to Vail. It is very pretty though.

After a long few days of travel we were very much looking forward to getting settled into our condo. We brought some of our belongings in and went back to the car to get some more when all of a sudden my mom shut the door without grabbing the keys. Our keys to get into the condo were on the kitchen table, and you guessed it...we were locked out!! As our luck would have it, this incident occurred on a Sunday when nobody is in the office. As we stared at each other horrified at the fact we just locked ourselves outside there was nothing we could do besides laugh. This was not part of the plan. Fortunately another guest walked out of their condo and let us use their phone because our cellphones were conveniently sitting next to the keys on the kitchen table. We got to talking to Everett and his family and learned they're from Kansas. Everett's daughter was doing physical therapy for her hip. We exchanged numbers and would possibly see them again in a few weeks when they came back for a follow-up appointment.

May 25, 2015: THE BIG DAY!! It was day one of physical therapy. I was so happy to see everybody at the clinic. With as often as I had been at the clinic over the past few years, the staff have become friends. When my physical therapist D came to the lobby to get me I made sure to point out the Blackhawk logo I had painted on my brace (sadly, he's not a Blackhawks fan). When we got back by a table he had me take my brace off. There were two noticeable things with the brace off 1.) my scapula sat in a MUCH better position compared to before surgery and 2.) my muscles had atrophied a ton. There was a big indent from the strap right over my biceps muscle. D had me lay on my back and he took my arm to slowly move it. I didn't say it, but I was so scared to have him move my arm; it was the first time my arm was being moved in four months. As scared as I was, there was instant relief when I immediately noticed a positive change from the surgery. I could lay flat on my back without needing an inner tube over my scapula to disperse the pressure, AND my scapula didn't protrude into the table!

Picture from a few months before surgery

showing all the propping over my back

that was needed just to lay back. The blue is

the inner tube. 

The mentality going into physical therapy was very different this time around.  When I got the okay from Dr. E to begin pt I asked him what I should expect. He honestly looked at me and said, "Well...I don't know since nobody has ever had this procedure done before so you need to go slow. Your therapists will be writing the protocol. Listen to your body and give your physical therapist feedback." Not having any sort of timeline to gauge where I should be in the rehab process was a good thing for me. There was no comparing my progress to anyone else. I didn't have over the top expectations when I started pt; my main goal was to be able to raise my left arm close to shoulder level, have enough motion to do functional daily tasks, and have less pain than I did in the Fall. That was it. Anything more than that was the cherry on top.

In order to rehab my left scapula/shoulder I was doing pt four times a week, two times a day, and on my days off I was going in the pool. Dr. E and my therapists said it was really important to do aqua-therapy to try to teach my arm how to move again. The pool would be beneficial because it would take some of the weight off my arm. It was incredibly difficult to retrain my arm to move like a "normal" person and resist the urge to move the way I've taught myself with altered body mechanics. To put it in perspective the last time my left arm had moved somewhat normal was in 2006. Some, but definitely not all of the things we worked on during the first month of therapy consisted of a lot of hands on work trying to retrain my arm, and retrain my brain that it's okay for my arm to move. I had to spend a lot of time walking just to practice getting my arm to sway so it didn't just hang at my side.  We worked on teaching me to reach for objects that were directly in front of me. For quite awhile my pt had to have their hands on my shoulder/scapula to help guide the movement because I didn't know how since in my world I don't reach for things. I bend my elbow and I lean forward with my torso to "reach". This was no longer allowed and was the hardest habit to break. We worked on a lot of neuromuscular control. We did a lot of exercises with my eyes closed to work on my proprioception (your ability to know where a body part is in relation to space. Ex: when your eyes are closed you know if your arm is at your side or above your head). We worked on getting all of my muscles to activate as one cohesive group vs. my muscles activating in a different sporadic order every single time. I can't tell you the number times I would say, "This feels so weird!" or, "There is such a disconnect; I can see you moving my arm in the reflection and my arm isn't supposed to move like that." or, "Are you sure this is ok?" or one of my favorites, "This is what a "normal" person moves like?!? Normal people move weird. My way feels better...(to which they reply, "Your way is anything but normal".) All I can say is, do not take those simple movements for granted. They're a pain in the butt to relearn once you've forgotten how.

June 15, 2015 in the water I could abduct my arm to almost shoulder level.

I couldn't move it like this out of the water yet but it was a huge

baby step that we were all very excited about.

You have no idea how weird it was seeing this picture for the first time

because there was a disconnect knowing that was my arm

that high.

One of the ways I worked on practicing reaching on my own without it feeling like exercise was doing jigsaw puzzles over the months to come. It's one of those activities where you start reaching without thinking about it which is exactly what I needed. Another activity I did was coloring in coloring books with a lot of detailed patterns. This helped with fine motor control, helping me practice having my arm up on a table, and of course more reaching when grabbing a different color. I'm right hand dominant so there was an added challenge of learning all of this with my non-dominant left arm.

All four of these puzzles were 1,000 pieces which meant ample opportunity for me to practice moving my arm. 

As honest and descriptive as I try to be there is no way to truly describe what all this therapy looks like day to day. Pictures with a beautiful landscape can be misconstrued as being on a vacation when the fact of the matter is nothing could be further from the truth. I'm fortunate to be in an absolutely gorgeous area while working my butt off. One of the things that I discovered with retraining my muscles and learning these motions is that there is a tremendous amount of brain fatigue that occurs because you're forming new neural pathways. I can't begin to tell you the number of times that I would come back from pt and tell my mom my brain is so tired and I literally couldn't think straight. Every day I had to lay down basically to reboot my system. Fortunately there were lounge chairs so I was able to lay outside. I would bring my pillows, prop, and get some fresh air. All that nature soothes your soul.

In between pt sessions and on my days off depending on how I was feeling, my mom and I would go for a drive to look at the mountains. Some days we would just walk ten minutes from where we were staying to picnic next to the creek and eat lunch. Other days we sat out in the courtyard and played a lot of Scrabble, cards, Yahtzee, and colored. We enjoyed being in the courtyard because we interacted with people; some of whom were doing pt. There was Tim with his parents, Peter and his mom, Firefighter Joe. It's nice talking to the other pt patients because you all have an understanding to an extent of what the other is going through. 

June 10, 2015 A funny coincidence occurred. A friend that I met in 2007 when I was in Minnesota happened to be in Vail for the weekend. The last time we saw each other was in 2007. It's kind of funny that we each live in different states, and end up meeting for lunch in a state that neither of us live in. It's funny sometimes how things work out. 

June 15, 2015 not only was it a big day because I was able to move my arm to almost shoulder height in the pool as the picture above shows, but also the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup. When they won the Stanley Cup in 2013 I was in Colorado too so maybe it's a sign that I need to stay in Colorado...just a thought.   

Being excited that the Hawks won the Stanley Cup would be an understatement

This picture was taken at the Continental Divide. It's gorgeous up there.

June 25, 2015: my birthday!
I had physical therapy that day. The clinic was packed in the morning because the doctor's were doing their rounds for the post-op patients. I ended up getting a table in the back room and sat there by myself for quite a while. I never go in the back room because there isn't as much activity going on and there usually isn't anybody to talk too. Eventually another patient named Matt was brought back. He was there for his knee and was going to be leaving CO that afternoon to fly back home. It is pretty amazing how many people from all over the world come to this clinic for pt. If it weren't for needing the pt I would have never met any of these individuals and made some friendships along the way. I'm very thankful for technology. It makes staying in touch with everybody much easier. When my other therapist, T, came by me so we could start my session, he asked me what was new. I told him I'm officially another year older so he wished me a happy birthday.

When I went back to the clinic for my afternoon session, word had gotten around that it was my birthday. I found a table and T had me on my back and was working on my left arm. My other therapist D walk past the table I was at and went into his office. When he came out, he looked over at T and said, "Is it done?" T said, "Yea, it's in the back." Next thing ya know, D comes walking around on my right side and he and T say, "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!" D set a silver platter filled with a variety of cupcakes with "Happy Birthday Megan" on my stomach. I was shocked and said, "Ohhh my gosh! You guys got completely got me!" D and T proceeded to joke around and tell me that we should make reaching for a cupcake and bringing it to my mouth to eat as part of my exercises (reaching and bringing a cup or food to my mouth is actually part of my daily exercises so it was actually very fitting). D set the platter on a stool next to me and those cupcakes were my motivation; work hard and get a cupcake afterwards. I asked where all the cupcakes came from and who cut out all the letters and they told me everyone at the front desk was scrambling cutting out letters, and some stopped at the store to get the cupcakes. It was very much a team effort and I can not thank them enough for making my birthday special. It really meant a lot since all of my family/friends were back home in Illinois. Before I left I told my therapists to give the cupcakes to other patients and therapists because there was absolutely no way I could eat all of them.

The first month of pt was very difficult but also very encouraging. The months that followed brought a lot of "firsts"...

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Trust Your Gut

February 2013

The weeks to come after arriving home from Colorado were filled with much activity. As expected there was a lot of physical therapy trying to rehabilitate this right shoulder but there was also a lot of apprehension. The cortisone injection Dr. M gave me February 1st wasn't providing a lot of relief. I had to force myself to ditch the shoulder brace when it was almost March. I was still getting the sharp pain and couldn't move my arm more than a couple inches; however, I figured I would "get used to it" like I have with other pains in my body. Dr. M said if things weren't improving in physical therapy after 3 weeks the next step would be doing an arthroscopic surgery to take a look in my shoulder to see what was going on. Instead of doing 3 weeks of physical therapy I ended up doing 9 weeks. At 9 weeks my motion wasn't improving and I was still having a lot of issues. I contacted my medical team in Colorado and the plan was to have me come out in April for 2 weeks to meet with physical therapy and with Dr. M.

The pictures below are from March 6, 2013. Almost four months after surgery and that's the amount of motion I had with the "help" of the cortisone. 

I could/still can only move my arm this far

To this day, I can only raise my arm this high before I get the sharp/stabbing pain

I took the semester off from school because I had a ton of rehabilitation ahead of me
The lack of motion makes it really hard to do basic functional tasks...

As if dealing with the right side isn't enough, the left side has a whole list of problems too

Even though it was really, really difficult with all of the medical stuff going on, there were other things happening in my life to look forward too. It's these things that basically help give me the motivation to keep plugging along one day at a time. Once again, you have to incorporate happy things into your life. For me the happy/fun things are the reminders that there is more than just medical stuff in my life.

On March 9th my mom and I took my nieces to see their first professional soccer game. We had gotten them tickets as a Christmas gift and it was a much anticipated event. Both of my nieces played soccer, and before I became injured I was a soccer player; needless to say my mom had a lot of practice cheering us on (my dad too for that matter). We had a lot of fun at the game.

My mom and I. We made it to the stadium!

Waiting for the game to start with my nieces. 

A surprise visit from the mascot Sparky

March 22, 2013 was such an AWESOME day. My nephew Justin was born! Now I have two nieces and two nephews. I can't believe he is going to be two years old in just a few short months already. They sure don't stay little long and time sure does fly by!

My nephew Justin who is such a sweetie. If you have arm/shoulder issues
prop with pillows if you have too to make holding something easier 

In April my mom and I flew back to Colorado to follow-up with my medical team. Our initial plan was to meet with the physical therapy team for one week and then the following week meet with Dr. M. April 8, 2013 was day one of physical therapy. I told my physical therapist I will try to do whatever he wanted because I wanted him to see that there is something wrong. After my first appointment he was not pleased with my range of motion 5 months out from surgery. I tried doing various shoulder exercises and there was sharp pain and my arm wouldn't really move. The only good news was I did have a little strength which showed my arm had potential. During my second physical therapy appointment that day, my shoulder shifted forward twice and my physical therapist had to manipulate it back into place. Later that day I received a call from the clinic that my appointment with Dr. M had been moved up to the very next day.

April 9, 2013: I met with Dr. M and he reviewed the MRI images of my right shoulder that were done before the appointment. Again, nothing really showed but something was obviously wrong. Dr. M decided surgery was necessary. I asked when he thought I would be having the surgery and his response was, "Tomorrow." Talk about a quick change in plans!

April 10, 2013: Surprise surgery day. This was not on my list of "Things to do" for this week at all. During surgery a loose suture anchor was found. I had been saying since January when the pop in my shoulder happened that it felt like an anchor had popped because it was similar sensation to the two previous times. I was told it would have shown on MRI...it didn't. Good thing I was adamant that was something was wrong, and I trusted my gut. Surgery also revealed there was tearing of the allograft, type I SLAP tear (partial tear and degeneration of the labrum (cartilage)), and the arthritis had progressed further in areas. In November 2012 I had diffuse grade 2 and grade 3 arthritis on my humeral head and glenoid. Five months later I had diffuse grade 3 and grade 4 arthritis (there are 4 stages of arthritis with stage 4 being the most severe. There is loss of joint space and you're bone on bone...just what every 23 year old wants to hear..not). I also had evidence of adhesive capsulitis which is commonly referred to as frozen shoulder. During surgery they did manual manipulation, extensive glenohumeral debridement (cleaning out of the shoulder joint), subacromial decompression, subcoracoid decompression, subcoracoid bursectomy, as well as multiple deep tissue biopsies. It was the first shoulder surgery that I ever had that didn't involve a big open incision; it was done strictly arthroscopically (tiny incisions looking in the joint with a camera). Honestly, recovery was not hard at all. In comparison to my previous surgeries it was a piece of cake. It didn't even feel like I had surgery even though Dr. M said he did a lot of work in my shoulder. From a pain perspective my left side hurt a ton more than my right (surgical side)...for the time being.

Waiting to be wheeled back to the operating room

Pictures of the inside of my R shoulder joint

Physical therapy started the very next day after surgery. I went two times a day for the next week and a half while I was in Colorado. While we were there, 16 inches of snow occurred in one day! It was so pretty. We didn't have to drive anywhere in the snow so we enjoyed it even more.

Very pretty, isn't it? 

Fortunately with this surgery I didn't need to wear the brace long. It was worn
on an "as needed" basis. We went for a short walk to the creek so I just stuck
my hand in my jacket pocket to act as my "brace".

Sure enough this trip to Colorado had come to an end and we were back home in Illinois. We were home in Illinois just long enough to pack and turn around to head back to Colorado and stay for a little over two months to do a ton of physical therapy and see if we can get these arms functional. Who knew those next 2+ months was only the beginning of figuring out the "beast" that lives in my shoulders...

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Uh-oh...POP!

January 2013

A turn of events was soon to happen at the end of the month and I would be heading back to the wonderful state of Colorado for medical reasons (hopefully one day it will be for going on vacation). I was still in the shoulder brace from surgery on November 9, 2012 and physical therapy was soon to start. My doctor and physical therapist in Colorado extended the time they wanted me in the brace; usually you'd wear the brace for 6 weeks but I had to wear the brace full time for 10-11 weeks and then I was allowed to slowly wean from there. Since my prior history with shoulder surgeries doesn't have a good track record my medical team really wanted to make sure my tissue had time to heal. At this point in time I was still labeled as "collagen deficient" because the possibility of having a connective tissue disorder was supposedly ruled out in 2007. Dr. M suspected there was something more going on though so he implemented more precautions for after surgery. Normally with all the prior shoulder surgeries I couldn't wait to get out of the brace; however, this time was different. I physically couldn't get myself out of the brace.

When physical therapy started it was excruciatingly slow and painful. Red flags were going off in my head because I had never experienced this before. My Illinois physical therapist tried doing passive range of motion and he could barely move my arm without me having this insanely sharp/stabbing pain over the front of my shoulder; interestingly enough it's the same exact pain that I still have to this day. We tried reclining me in various positions on the table to see if that helped and there was no luck. My shoulder was so weak and killed. The weight of my arm was too heavy so I stayed in the brace whenever I was out and about; at home I just propped with pillows. As much as I love my physical therapist I dreaded going to therapy because it never ended well for me. Every time I left I would get in the car and cry from the pain. When I would get home I would put more ice on and go lay down. As the weeks went on there were tiny improvements but nothing to jump up and down about. I could go a little longer without the brace on but my gut still kept saying there's a problem.

When I woke up on Thursday January 31, 2013 I thought it was going to be just like any other ordinary day. Little did I know that evening I would be on an airplane flying to Colorado. I went to physical therapy in the morning and things were going as well as can be. We tried working on flexion (moving arm in front of you) with my elbow bent. We did active assisted motion (me moving my arm with the help of my therapist). Whenever we work on any sort of motion my physical therapist always has at least one hand on my shoulder to help give it stability. There was sharp pain every time we moved my arm but at this point my mindset was it's going to hurt no matter what. When we tried to move my arm forward all of a sudden there was a loud, audible POP! I felt my arm slowly drop down by my side with pain, my physical therapist's eyes were wide, and I started to cry. I knew something bad had happened because I am not one to cry in the middle of physical therapy. My physical therapist walked away for a couple minutes so I could compose myself. When he came back I told him to continue. I needed to know if it was the type of pop that would provide relief or if it was the type of pop where something bad had happened. Unfortunately it was the the type of pop that something bad had happened. I was concerned. It killed to move my arm and it felt like an anchor had popped. It was the same exact sensation that I had in the past when I've had anchors pop on me.

Fast forward a few hours and the next thing you know I'm on an airplane heading to Colorado. We had called Dr. M's office after my physical therapy appointment and there was concern something may have happened to the graft so they ordered an MRI and I would see Dr. M the following day. Shortly before we hopped in the car to head to the airport the staff in Colorado had called to tell us that Dr. M had something come up and wouldn't be able to see me. We already had bought our airline tickets so we were heading there no matter what. We decided I would be evaluated my his fellow instead. The following day was February 1st. My mom drove from Denver to Vail. As luck would have it, it decided to snow. Mountain driving is very, very different than driving in Illinois.

It's pretty with the snow

The yellow sign on the right says "Avalanche Area". It's a sign that
you will NEVER see in Illinois.

After my MRI I had my appointment with the fellow. My MRI didn't show anything too concerning. I told the fellow that it felt like an anchor had popped and I was told it would have shown on MRI. I disagreed because I've had an anchor pop twice in this shoulder and it never showed on MRI. The fellow tried to examine my shoulder and the same sharp pain kept reoccurring. He tried telling me he thinks I'm hurting because I'm guarding. I completely disagreed. As we were leaving my mom called my Illinois physical therapist and had the fellow speak with him. After talking to my Illinois physical therapist the fellow told me that he wasn't sure what was wrong with my shoulder and he was going to call Dr. M. I received a phone call and Dr. M was going to come back to the clinic to see me later that day.

Taking a break before heading to see Dr. M 

At the appointment with Dr. M he made a point of telling me that he came back just to see me. I was greatly appreciative and it was so nice of him. Dr. M gave me a shot of cortisone in the shoulder. At this point there was no definitive course of treatment. It was more wait and see what happens over the coming weeks. If I wasn't doing better in 3 weeks Dr. M said he might do an arthroscopy to look inside the shoulder joint to see what's going on.

After my appointment with Dr. M I met with the physical therapist to see if we should modify any of my physical therapy program at home. This was the first time that I had worked with this physical therapist; the first time I met him was in my hospital room after surgery in November. At therapy I remember going through my surgical history with him. He looked at the incisions on the front and back of my shoulder joints and I had chimed in, "Don't forget the two over my shoulder blades". The tank-top I had on covered my shoulder blades so he moved my shirt over and said, "Wow!" I laughed and said it's too bad I don't have some awesome story of how I injured them. We then proceeded to talk about all sorts of various tattoo ideas I could get so the scars were less noticeable. I still chuckle every time I think about this first visit. My therapy program didn't change too much. He wanted me to focus on isometric exercises to strengthen the shoulder with my physical therapist providing added stability with his hands which is a lot of what we were doing already. At this point he thought the issues I was having was due to muscle weakness. I thought it was contributing factor but the not the main problem. Time would tell over the coming weeks. Before I left he taped my shoulder up to see if that would provide any relief due to the added support and stability.

The tape job that the physical therapist did for me. It did help some.
I really noticed it when I had the brace off. Unfortunately I couldn't
wear the tape too long because adhesive and my skin don't mix well.

After my appointment at physical therapy it was time to drive back to Denver. We learned a very important lesson that day. When you look to the east and you can't see the mountains because it's all foggy...don't drive! It was the scariest drive ever. My mom and I didn't talk at all. It was snowing really hard. When we were in the valley the driving was okay but as soon as we went up in elevation it was sheets of snow flying across the night sky. It looked like ghosts. After a few hours in the car we finally made it to Denver and could breathe. We when we got into our hotel room we heard on the news that they had shut down Vail Pass; which is the pass my mom just finished driving.

This picture is from this year but it's the same thing that we saw in 2013.
Vail Pass was closed this time too. 

As we sat on the airplane flying back to Illinois there was a lot of thoughts going through our minds. Like always, all we could do was take things one day at a time. When we got back to Illinois physical therapy started up again for the next few weeks and the next thing we know we were flying back to Colorado...again.

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