ONE YEAR

Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of our sweet McKennlie's accident.  I have been very thoughtful lately, just trying to wrap my head around everything that has happened in the last year.  First of all, I can't believe it has been a year.  I honestly feel like it just happened, and it still feels so fresh. BUT when I think about everything she has been able to accomplish and I look back and realize how far she has come, I am amazed!  Truly amazed and grateful.  When I woke up yesterday and looked at my beautiful daughter, I pulled her into my arms and squeezed her so tight.  I whispered in her ear, "I love you so much, and I'm so grateful that we're not in the hospital today!"  She pulled away, smiled, and said, "me too!"
Even though there are still things we're working on with her, and things that are still so frustrating to her, we continue to press forward with faith and KNOW that she will be made whole.  My life has been forever changed, and my faith forever strengthened through this amazing experience.  I will never be the same, but that is a good thing.  There have been times throughout this trial when I didn't think I was going to make it.  There were so many moments of despair and sadness that I thought I was going to be swallowed up in it.  Then I would drop to my knees and call upon Heavenly Father for help.  HE was ALWAYS there!  It was in those moments that I truly learned what faith was, and what it felt like to be carried by something I couldn't see.  I just want everyone to remember that miracles are real!  Jesus Chris LIVES, and Heavenly Father hears EVERY prayer.  I know this to be true.  I am overwhelmed to think about everything that was done for our family over the past year, and it still continues today.  Thank you for EVERYTHING.  We still could not make it through this without everyone's prayers, love, and support.
With love,
Melanie

Race Day

Just a quick update on our AMAZING girl.  McKennlie, Bella, Melanie, and Chris all participated in the Brain Injury 5K this morning in the rain!!!!  We crossed the finish line all together holding hands as a family to celebrate how far our Miracle Girl has come.  We ran the race with some of our greatest friends from Primary Children's.....Kristen and Lisa, we LOVE you!  What an amazing day to see our girl running!  It's crazy that we're just a few weeks away from our 1 year mark.  What a year!
A week ago we had our follow up with the eye surgeon, and he said that McKennlie's eyes look great, and the surgery was a success!  We will continue to watch her.  If for any reason they start to slip back he could go back in and do a little more.  Let's hope we're ALL DONE with the surgeries! Life is wonderful, and we're really looking forward to having a fantastic summer vacation!  We're planning on playing hard.
McKennlie has been taking swimming lessons from her sweet cousin Rachel, and is loving every second of it!  She's doing really well, and Rachel says she should be ready for level 3 this summer (which is where she was before the accident)  She LOVES to swim!  She's all signed up for soccer in the fall, and we can hardly wait to see our little soccer star running around that field again.  Miracles, Miracles, Miracles.  I believe in Miracles!!

Update!!

Hey everyone, this is Melanie.  I just wanted to give you the latest update on our sweet Miss McKennlie.  About 2 weeks ago we went and had a neuropsych test done where we met with a Dr. who ran her through a bunch of tests that lasted all day from 9AM until 3:30 PM.  Boy, was she pooped!!!  These tests were to see how she is doing with learning. The findings weren't really a surprise to me because I pretty much know where she is weak and where she is strong, but I'm glad we did it, and in 3 three years when we do it again, we will see just how much she will have improved.  I was very happy to know that she scored above average on her Math (5th grade level)!!  The areas in which she is a little behind are:  Processing speed, reading comprehension, and something called executive problem solving.  Pretty much, we need to be playing A LOT of 20 questions with her, so her brain can come up with higher levels of thinking to solve a problem.  Overall, we are so pleased with her results, and even though we have a ways to go, she is really doing great.  The Dr. did say that by looking over her medical history of her injury, and knowing just how bad it was, she is doing fantastic.  That made me feel really good.  Another factor that may be holding her back is her eyes.  She was born with a condition called Duane's Syndrome.  Her left eye has an injured nerve from birth, which means she cannot move it laterally.  When her right eye looks left, her left eye stays straight.  Since her accident, it has gotten a little worse.  It's kind of stuck in one place and causes her eyes to cross most of the time. She is seeing double at times, and her right eye is dominating.  We were waiting to see if over time, it would heal and go back to where it was before the accident, but it is not, so the Opthamologist at Primary's has decided that muscle surgery is our best option at this time. If you ask McKennlie, she sees FINE, but we're hoping that this will help with her peripheral vision on the left side, and maybe even her balance.  She does have 20/20 vision, but they want to straighten out her eyes so they are both being used equally.  We're all a little nervous for this, but the Dr. is very confident that this will work, and there are very few risks involved.  If you could, maybe offer a prayer for McKennlie that she won't be scared, and that everything will go well.  Her surgery is April 18th.
I HAVE to share one quick story.....Tender mercies are still happening 10 months later!!! A few weeks ago, I contacted our good friend Bill who has been in charge of the donations on the blog.  I asked him if he could close out the account, and thanked him for taking care of it.  He said he would and I didn't think another thing about it.  So we received our bill for the Neuropsych testing and also found out how much it was going to cost for the eye surgery.  Well, 2 days ago I received a voicemail from Bill saying that he went in and closed the account, and there was actually some money in there that he didn't know about.  Almost EXACTLY the amount needed to pay for the Neuropsych test, and the eye surgery!!  I just want EVERYONE to know how grateful we are for everything you have done for our family.  Your love and donations have eased our burden so much!  We will never be able to repay what you have done for us.  Because of you, we haven't had to worry about her medical bills for one minute.  You have been an instrument in Heavenly Father's plan for us.  You have been the answer to our prayers throughout this entire experience.  We love each and every one of you, and even those of you we don't even know.  The only thing we can say is THANK YOU, from the bottom of our hearts!!!!  We pray that Heavenly Father will bless each of you and your families for the service you have given to ours.  We love you all so much!!!
Love Love Love, Chris and Melanie

PT session with Daddy.  This was after running for a half mile on the treadmill and a little Lumosity and Piano lesson before that.

This is a short clip of McKennlie in PE.  She's doing AWESOME!!!!!

It's been quite a while since we've written, so I wanted to take a minute and update McKennlie's progress.  We met with her amazing teacher, Mrs. Bolingbroke last week, and we were able to compare 1st quarter and 2nd quarter.  It was so wonderful to see how much she has improved in just a few months.  She has been coming home with 100% papers in her backpack, and is grasping new concepts very well.  It takes a little more time to process, but she is doing it!!!  A couple weeks ago she kept talking about how she had a test on the bones of the body coming up, and how nervous she was to take it.  So, we studied and studied and said a prayer, and what do you know, she got 100%.  She was so happy, and I want to know how many of YOU out there knows what the Electronon Process is??  Yeah, I didn't either, but she sure did.  Another great blessing is she is retaining the information.  We quizzed her the other day on some of the bones, and sure enough, she remembered them.  Chris is still kicking butt with her physical therapy, and hasn't missed a session.  My sweet parents let us borrow their treadmill to help with her therapy, and what do you know, she's doing SPRINTS on it.  Chris will warm her up for a couple minutes at a speed of 2.5 without her holding on, then he'll have her hold on and up the speed to 5.0 for a sprint of 30 seconds.  Today he got her up to 6.0 for one of the sprints.  She'll do a total of 6 sets of these on top of everything else he has her doing.  She's absolutely amazing, and of course, never complains.  She just gives it her all, just like everything else she does.  Grandma Provost continues her Occupational Therapy each week, and I'm pretty sure it's McKennlie's favorite day.  She's always coming up with new things to work on in a really fun way.  (it somehow always involves some sort of treat!)  I'm still working on piano and Speech Therapy with her.  Lefty is still a little behind, but we're still seeing improvement each week.  Any prayer in "Lefty's" behalf would be greatly appreciated!  As always, we give thanks to Heavenly Father for His continued answers to our prayers!  We are so thankful for every little tiny improvement.  We try not to take anything for granted.  We thank each and every one of you for your continued thoughts and prayers for our sweet girl.
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE  Melanie

This is Melanie...I just wanted to post another sweet miracle that happened a couple days ago.  Most of you know that I had been teaching McKennlie piano for a few years before her accident.  Since returning home from the hospital, I've tried a couple times to get her to play.  She does really well with her right hand, but not so much with the left.  It's amazing to me that she still can read music and she remembers everything she was taught, she just can't get her lefty to do what she wants it to.  At first, it was all she could do to hold her left hand still while resting it on the keys, so we'd leave it alone for a week or so then try again.  Every time we'd try it would improve a little each time.  Well, I'm happy to report that for the first time, she played a song with both hands together, on beat, and I even played a duet part with her!  I cried and cried tears of joy and gratitude, and squeezed her so tight.  She was so happy.  She is now starting back into her lessons once a week.  She's back one level from where she was before, but I KNOW she'll get back to it.  The doctors say the piano will make huge improvements for her brain.  They are so pleased.  She had her 6 month checkup yesterday and everyone was amazed as usual.  Since we've used all of our visits for outpatient therapy, we are taking it upon ourselves to be her full-time therapists.  Chris does PT with her, Cheryn, Chris' Mom, will be in charge of Speech, and I will be doing piano and OT.  We are so thankful for the continued miracles we are seeing.  Thank you to all that continue to pray for our angel.  We are still feeling so much love and support.  We love you all!!