Walking Miracle; Stand Strong!

Monday afternoon Zoey had a check up at Childrens. They removed all the stitches, said her incisions have healed very well, and gave her the green light to begin walking as she is ready to!!

Scars on her calf

Well Thursday night she amazed us all yet again. Zoey very frankly said "I'm gonna walk", stood right up, and WALKED!! Then, at our church's VBS finale, Zoey went up on stage with 300 other children and danced to praise songs!!! We all kind of stood in awe, tears falling, as we watched her dancing and praising Jesus to the lyrics: "We will trust, trust in God alone. We will stand, stand upon His word. And whatever comes our way, WE ARE STRONG, and WE ARE BRAVE.... His truth will be our guide through the day, and the darkest night. Our God will give us strength. We will stand together, stand forever. We will STAND STRONG!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07tlUSoJIhQ

This girl seriously continues to amaze us every day. She has overcome so much, beat all the odds, and is quite literally a walking miracle!! Just weeks ago, we were afraid she would die. Weeks ago we weren't sure if she would have two legs. We weren't sure if she would be able to walk again, let alone dance. This moment will not too soon leave our hearts!

However, she gets pretty excited to be walking again and goes all crazy, but quickly gets exhausted and is in pain after too much bouncing around, so she reverts to crawling, but she is making huge progress!

She also had another checkup with her primary care physician. There's a little concern because, although the last three days she has been eating well, Zoey has lost quite a bit of weight through this whole ordeal.

Thursday she also had the appointment at Children's Cardiology about her Atrial Septal Defect. She had another echocardiogram and they have said that the hole is significantly large and will for sure need to be closed. They are going to wait until spring of next year before doing surgery, so her body has a good chance to continue to heal from all the surgeries on her leg. They will first try to close the hole by catheter, but it's likely that she will need open heart surgery. This is frightening news and very hard to think about, so for now we focus on regaining her strength, healing from this part of the journey, and reveling in the miracle that she is.