I'm trying to get back on an even keel. What a week, and it's only Wednesday! Our pump decided to go out on our well Saturday night, so we had limted water pressure all day Sunday - but at least we had water! Ralph ended up taking Monday off to deal with the pump people, and our insurance. It got fixed, at a cost of somewhere around $2,000.

Monday morning was also Alli's appointment with the Spine specialist. Bad news there too. She has scoliosis, pretty severely. She has a curvature of 47 degrees in her upper back and 55 degrees in her lower back. The max they want to see without surgery is 40. The doctor is going to try a brace, but....he would rather do surgery.

Now I'm playing 'good mommy - bad mommy' stuff in my head. The surgery won't be good for Alli, but the brace isn't a cure - it just stops the progression. I hear lots of bad things about the surgery, and Ralph's boss actually had the surgery - she says don't do it either! I don't know if the 'cure' would be worth Alli having back surgery (inserting rods and fusing vertebrae). That just doesn't sound like it would be a lot of fun, and could cause even more problems later in life. The brace won't be fun - from what I understand, it is a plastic hard shell that rests on her hips and will go up to her chin, and worn 23 hours a day. Not looking forward to that either!

On the other hand, Cindy came down last weekend and visited, and took AJ's senior pictures. Here are a few of them - unedited. I am very happy with what we got!