Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. - Nelson Mandela

It all started last monday when my 19 year old stepdaughter went to the hospital to have surgery to correct her scoliosis. She had two titanium rods implanted on either side of her spine with a subsequent bone graft to help hold the rods in their place. Her mother has been fretting over how she would deal with the surgery and true to form, her daughter breezed through the 10 hour surgery in 7 hours. Her recovery has been good mostly due to her high tolerance for pain. The week was filled with trips to Toronto for her mother while I manned the household tending to my 16 year old stepdaughter.

Yesterday when I came home from picking up the boys from school, I found my youngest stepdaughter sitting on a chair beside herself in tears holding the phone in her hand. My heart literally sank thinking the worse. Her mother and sister were on their way home from the hospital and I immediately thought something horrible had happened. I have had one of those moments in my life and don't care to revisit it. She saw the look of horror on my face and directed me towards her ankle. Apparently she was playing with the dog and tripped. It appeared to be a sprain so I helped her up to her room, put ice on her ankle and waited for her mother to get home. Soon after her mother arrived with one child and then promptly left with the other to go to the hospital.

They finally got home at midnight and as it turns out, it wasn't a sprain but a broken fibula. I am going to get some much needed exercise running up and down the stairs for the next several weeks.