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Saturday, December 1, 2007

Nora

Nora, daughter of parishioners Wes and Katie Jones, has been on our prayer list for several months.

Her mother provided an update and a summary of her surgical challenges and progress, and gave permission to share it on our website, along with a post-Thanksgiving update.


November 9, 2007

Dear Friends at St Stephen's,

Thank you so much for all your prayers, cards and notes for my daughter, Nora, during her brain surgeries. It made all the difference. As you can see from the photographs, Nora has greatly improved from her brain surgeries starting August 20th,

Nora after surgery in August


compared with the photos of her competing at UNH for U Maine on November 3rd.

Nora competing in a UNH-U Maine Woodsman Competition on Nov. 3rd


Nora returned to college a couple of weeks late but has caught up with her school work. The University did suggest a reduced schedule due to missing two weeks and recovering from brain surgery. Nora is majoring in Communication Sciences and Disorders with the hopes of becoming a Speech Pathologist. Nora has always been an athlete. She received 12 varsity letters while at Merrimack Valley high school, running cross country, Winter track and Spring track. Shortly after the first surgery, the neurosurgeon found that Nora was paralyzed on her entire left side. He took her back into emergency surgery and with God's help made a change that allowed for the movement to return in her arm and hand then her left leg. Nora started talking then about competing in a "sprint" triathlon. Yesterday she emailed me that she had signed up for the Timberman Triathlon Sprint to be held August 16, 2008 right here in NH. It will be just shy of the 1 year anniversary of her brain surgery. (I think a "sprint" triathlon is a 5K run, 16 mile bike, and a 1/2 mile swim)

Nora does need one more surgery to repair a hole in her head. That work is scheduled for the week after Thanksgiving. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I can't thank you enough for all your prayers for Nora. I thank God every day for Nora, for Nora's health and for all those that prayed for Nora.
May you all have a Happy Thanksgiving with your families.
Katie Jones


Update

There is another chapter to this one. The Friday night before Thanksgiving, Nora called from college, her head was leaking. I had her immediately call Dartmouth. The on-call neurosurgeon had her come right down from Maine to Hanover. They admitted her and put her on IV antibiotics. On Tuesday, she had surgery. Nora now has a titanium prosthetic, replacing part of her skull bone. We spent Thanksgiving by her bedside. Dartmouth had said she would have to come home on IV antibiotics for 6 weeks. This was going to be a trick because there are 3 weeks of classes and a week of Final exams left in the semester. Thankfully, the department of infections diseases decided the type of bacteria she had could be treated by pills. Nora came home Friday night. We had probably the nicest Thanksgiving dinner on Friday night, just the five of us. In typical Nora fashion, she returned to U Maine on Sunday - 36 stitches and all....

A picture of Nora has been included in a new Dartmouth presentation/brochure.




Thanks to Katie for sharing Nora's remarkable progress. Let's give thanks for the good news, and keep the Jones family in our prayers!