Hello everyone! It's Cathi's favorite daughter again! (CJ, duh!)

You have probably noticed Mom's absence from this blog in the last couple of weeks. As she is unable to right now, let me give you the rundown of what's been going on down here.

Early last week, Mom began to notice a significant increase in her pain levels in her right leg. We thought it might have been from the vigorous physical therapy schedule she was on, so we didn't worry too much about it at first. She tried to stay off of her feet as much as she could and we alternated bringing in ice packs and heating pads to help with the pain. But each day the pain became worse and worse until last weekend it got so bad that she could not stand or walk at all without major help. The weekend got worse and by Saturday she was not sleeping and even millimeters of movement was described by her as the worst pain she has ever felt. (If you know what she's been through in the last 9 years, you know that was a pretty powerful statement.)

On Monday morning Dad realized he had done all he could to try to control the pain at home and since absolutely nothing was working, he took her into the ER. I met them there and we waited a surprising 3 hours to see a doctor. (Surprising in a good way...this is military medicine, after all.) Their first inclination was that this could be some sort of infection in or around her bones so they did some blood work, took xrays, and a few other tests. After 8 hours in the ER with no answers, they admitted her to the hospital so her fabulous surgeon could take over her care.

Over the next few days Dr. Keeney worked tirelessly to get Mom some answers. For those of you who don't know, Dr. Keeney is a strong Christian and an incredible orthopedic surgeon. He has performed the last 3 or 4 of Mom's surgeries and is intent on finding the answer to Mom's ongoing problems. Finally, on Thursday, he came into her room and told us that a few of the cultures they ran from the fluid around her hip implant seemed to indicate an infection. So, surgery was scheduled for the next day.

On Friday they took her into the OR, opened up her whole leg and were surprised to find numerous problems to fix. I am not an orthopedic expert, so I won't attempt to explain everything that they did...I'll let Mom do that when she's back at home. But I can tell you that they cleaned out the infection, tightened up the ball/socket hip implant, secured the shaft's implant to her femur (it's not going ANYwhere), and chiseled off some bone fragments that were causing discomfort. Dr. Keeney said that the surgery was a success and we're all anxious to see if it really did take away the awful pain from the last few weeks.

Even though she had major surgery yesterday, she actually got up out of bed today and walked a few steps around her room--something she couldn't even think about doing the day before the surgery! The plan is to keep her in the hospital until the end of this next week just to make sure the infection is completely gone. After that, we'll move her back home and restart the physical therapy that she's so good at now. :)

It's been a tough couple of weeks around here and even though "we're used to it", it doesn't make the waiting and the uncertainty anymore fun. We like to say that we have plenty of practice in the area of trusting our Lord through fiery trials, and we pray that every trial He has us walk through only serves to strengthen that trust in His plan and sharpen our eyes to see Him better.

Mom specifically asked me to thank you all for praying for her and for us during this. Please continue to pray for her that she have a quick and complete recovery from this surgery and that the Lord would give her strength and energy to start therapy again to regain the use of her legs.

That's all I have for now! Either Mom or I will update you in a few days and let you know about her progress.

CJ for the Warrens

"For I know whate'ver befall me, Jesus doeth all things well!!"