Happy Birthday Tori!! June 22nd through Monday, August 10th

Happy Birthday Tori!!

Tori had her 19th birthday on Sunday and she spent it with her family. We didn't really do too much of anything but hang out with her in the house. Peace, quiet and restfulness was the mode for her birthday this year.

Tori's Ventral Rhizotomy was originally scheduled for June 29th but was cancelled due to non-approval by her insurance company... The interesting thing is they ended up approving it after appeal three days later. Oh yes, we DID win that battle!!! But after careful consideration and Tori's upcoming Spinal Fusion surgery on August 31th the timing was not right for two major surgeries back to back. We just can't put Tori through that much in this short time frame. Tori will spend 2-3 weeks at the PCMC recovering from the Spinal Fusion surgery which will take approximately 6-8 hours of surgery. Dr. Stephen Santora will perform the surgery. Hopefully the surgery will be a success and her pain and discomfort will be lessened and her breathing and digestive system will return to a more 'normal' state. We will now reconsider the Ventral Rhizotomy at a later time.

We are still very concerned about the Swine Flu but hopefully they may just have the vaccine available and Tori would certainly be a priority to have it. We shall see.

Summer is almost over already?!?!... We pretty much lost June here in Utah with 3+ weeks straight of cold temperatures and rain so it sure didn't seem like it lasted that long. Brendan and Whitney are preparing for school and Whitney will be a 15 year old sophomore at Timpanogos High School. She is exactly where Tori was just over 4 years ago and is very, very excited about her future just as Tori was. The pain and loss never ends, it still hurts each and every day.... Whitney will continue to do very well and has many of the same, challenging classes Tori had scheduled. Brendan reminds us of Tori so much and brings alot of happiness and joy to our family. He is full of energy, charisma and is a flat out sharp 8 year old kid!! :) He attended summer school this year for 4 hours per day to keep up his skills. So the routine continues, we take it day by day and we always hope and pray for better days and improvements for our beloved Tori.

Thank you for checking in and as always for your continued love, prayers and support for Tori and our family.

The Schmanski's
Tim, Maria, Tori, Whitney and Brendan