Hard to believe...but yes, just 2 days (less than 48 hours) to go until my 7th back surgery. I keep thinking to myself, "With every hour that passes, I'm that much closer to relief"[hopefully]. You have to weather the storm to appreciate the rainbow and right now, I'm desperately waiting that rainbow...

I went to my cousin's graduation party yesterday and saw at least 20 other extended family members. It was so nice to see and hang out with everyone and to see and spend time with my 96 yr old grandmother just makes these family gatherings that much more special. I have a very large, close-knit Irish Catholic family on both my Mom & Dad's sides. We love, support and pray for one other unconditionally and we're just a very strong, faith-driven family who enjoys spending time with one another. Yesterday was no exception. It does the heart good to see my children, now 6 and 4, playing my own cousins children. And the family just keeps growing and growing - with each new gathering, there is at least 1 new addition to the clan. Yesterday's newest additions were my cousin Sean's new twin babies, 6 months old (boy & girl), and they just stole the show. Holding them and playing with them just really confirms how important family IS to me...I am just so incredibly blessed to have such wonderful extended family and although we don't see one another as often now that everyone is older and moving in different directions, when we DO get together, the gatherings are that much more special and enjoyable. Family really IS everything - without them, I honestly don't know how I'd get through 1/2 of what's been tossed my way. So for that or for them, I am forever grateful.

As I sit here on my patio, enjoying the sunlight through the shade trees here in my backyard, I am reminded of the beauty in the simplest of things - shade on a muggy morning, birds hopping from picket to picket along the fence, hopping in and out of the sprinkler and opening their wings shaking the water through and off of their wings, bunnies cautiously hopping through the yard in anticipation of one of our dogs finding and chasing after them, I am just so blessed to be experiencing the "little things" in life, like the quiet solitude of an early morning coffee here in my shaded, beautiful backyard...

So, 48 hours from now, I will be well-into my 7th back surgery. I pray that the Lord guides my surgeons skilled and steady hands and that He leads them directly to the location of the leak(s) so that they can be repaired. These headaches, and the accompanying nausea and exhaustion that comes along with them, need to be fixed - I just cannot imagine living in this kind of pain for the rest of my life. My biggest fear, BIGGEST, is that I wake up and the surgeons tell me, "I'm so sorry Michele, but we didn't everything we could to find the leak, including removing your existing hardware and then replacing it again, but we couldn't find the site of the of leak." THAT is my biggest fear. I'm trying desperately to think only positive thoughts, I really am, but it is so so hard given the fact that although my brain MRI "clearly shows an obvious CSF leak," my spinal MRI was not so obvious. So the doctors are hoping it becomes more obvious once they're in there. And so do I.