Good evening family, friends, and followers. Thank you for your faithful interest in Joy’s healing and recovery and for you enduring prayer support for Joy and our family.
Today was another day of contrasts in the differing pace and components of Joy’s healing journey. While it did not cause frustration for her, for which I am thankful, the morning started with a stark view of her language/recall challenges. I was fixing her oatmeal the way she traditionally made it before the accident which included oatmeal, brown sugar, raisins or craisins, ground flax seed and walnuts. However, we had purchased some blueberries yesterday along with some bananas, the bananas were sitting on the counter. I asked her, “Would you like blueberries in your oatmeal this morning rather than raisins or craisins?” She looked over at the bananas on the counter and said, “No they are too green.” So I said, “I asked if you wanted blueberries in your oatmeal.” She looked at me questioningly and so I took the blueberries out os the refrigerator to show her. She said, “Yes, I’ll have those.” As we went on the eat breakfast, she kept looking at her bowl and then over at the bananas, her bowl then the bananas. She then stopped eating, pointed to her bowl and said, “What are these?” I said, “Blueberries.” She tried to pronounce the word and could not, so we worked for some time until she managed a bit of a muddled, “blue…berries...” She then pointed to the bananas and said, “And what are those?” I said, “Bananas.” Again, not able to repeat the word back without significant time carefully sounding out each syllable until she was able to say, “banana.” I share this rather detailed account just to hopefully help as you are praying for Joy to understand the profound degree of damage and deficit she still struggles with in language and recall. Thankfully, this was not an incident which discouraged Joy and we went on the got ready for her hand therapy appointment at West Health. And here is where the contrast comes in.
For those of you who know the building, West Health is a fairly long building and rather than concentrate handicapped parking in the center by the main door, the have handicapped parking extending the length of the building and when we arrived, the only spot remaining was the last one at the end row, a long way from the center door we were to enter. I almost pulled around to drop Joy off before parking, but it was a beautiful day and she had done some amazing distances on Wednesday, so we parked and started walking, she with her walker. She made it with no trouble to the main door, however, then we discovered the suite for her appointment was on the far side of the building from the center where we entered. Undeterred, she trucked right down the hall up the elevator and then down another long stretch, without even being winded. We had what felt like a very productive session with the hand therapist and then headed home.
Once home, Joy didn’t return to the scarf knitting project I had show previously, although I include a picture to show you how far she’s come and to show the beautiful knitted quilt the Knitting Grandmas group made for her. No, she decided to pic up the last baby hat she had been working on before the accident and made it all the way to completion. Amazing. I was overjoyed to know she was already able to accomplish something that allowed her to feel she was contributing to others with her skills and talents.
So, again, a day of contrasts. Thank you for your faithful prayers and they are so needed for her language/recall deficits, her sight, and her emotional stamina. But her being able to resume her baby hat knitting went a long way in giving her encouragement she can hang on to. Thank you so much for your continued prayers and overwhelming support.
