help wanted

today i am writing asking for feedback, for help, for insights. our daughter is 14. beginning last december, she has had unexpected trouble with her back. the back pain has caused her to miss nearly the entire spring semester of her 8th grade year, and now she has missed a month of school thus far in her freshman year. she loves school. she was a cheerleader. she has always been a social butterfly, loving to be in the crowd. she has been to 2 children's hospitals, 2 rounds of PT, 2 rounds of chiropractic care, she has had bone scans, xrays, MRI's, cat scans, a spinal tap, blood work, and every other type of test you can imagine. no one has been able to give this child any relief or any answers. we were thrilled when this summer and into the fall her pain was gone, thinking maybe the medications were helping. yet now that the cold weather has set in, the pain is back and she has had to stop attending school. it just now hit us a few weeks ago that possibly the all the swimming she did this summer helped with the back, and now that she is no longer swimming, the pain is back. our pool is not heated, we do not have a YMCA here, and we cant think of anyone with a heated pool that we could just go take use of a few times a week to help her. however, even if we could, we still do not know why she is having such issues. she was diagnosed with celiac disease 4 years ago. she has been totally gluten free ever since. this spring when this back fiasco first started, a bone doc told her she had scoliosis, but that it was not bad enough to number or to cause pain. we are still stuck with no answers, no relief, and plan of action. we are in an appeal with her insurance company for more testing, as they have denied her another cat scan, yet will approve all the narcotics in the world. she will not take those narcotics tho. they do not help her. they do not phase her pain or her speech or her motor function or anything at all actually. so we do not get the filled. pointless. anyway, does anyone out there have any experiences they could share, any hospitals, clinics, doctors on this planet that can and will help my child? this mom has had enough of not being able to help her child and not even knowing why.

thankfulness

what are you thankful for today? after all, today is the day, well now half a day if we are lucky, we set aside to point out what we are thankful for. if you ask my 5 year old son, today its teenage mutant ninja turtles. for me its actually the same thing just a few months ago i was whining about. money. no, our finances haven't hit the jackpot. they are actually on a slight downturn from a couple months ago. thats my fault, and another blog post. i am actually thankful that we didn't have the cash to begin Christmas shopping just yet. i wasn't tempted to leave my family early to go get the best deal at the local walmart, or get up at 3am to drive an hour to the nearest mall. (now if a friend had asked me to go, i probably would have just because i am a blue and all about the fun). anyway, i am thankful i am not in the insanity that so many of us are. if you are out shopping the black friday madness, then please, take a breath and enjoy the experience. enjoy the ability to be out. enjoy being. as for me and mine, we had a nice slow paced little thanksgiving. just me, my hubby, our 4 kids, and my mom. my mom came to our house and we had a great meal, at like 4pm. haha. the positive in eating so late...it was breakfast, lunch, and dinner. so i could go back for cake AND pie, and that was ok, because it was the only meal i had today. oh, and i now have installed blogger on my phone...so maybe now i can recommit to blogging, and stick with it this time. i just know the cyber world will be rejoicing soon!