Good morning friends, family, and followers who are faithfully holding Joy in your prayers. Joy has already had her CT scan this morning, I will posted again on that later when we have the results. I am pleased to report we had another positive day which we certainly attribute to your faithful prayers and heartfelt concern. I wish Caring Bridge allowed for posting video clips because if I could, I would post the video I took yesterday of Joy moving her right foot and toes! While not strong like her left leg and foot, Joy consistently moved her right foot and leg throughout the day. During her afternoon PT session she was able to extend her right foot out and hold her weight on both legs briefly, an encouragement beyond words. We thank and praise God for each of the answers to prayer we are seeing and for all of you who are so faithful in your prayers.
We had a very constructive time with speech and respiratory therapy. While continuing to work on the potential for Joy speaking past her tracheostomy, they gave me many resources and suggestions for helping Joy to be more aware of things in all five senses. We worked with visual tracking, taste, touch, swallowing, and cough on command. She was able to demonstrate her ability to cough on command and to practice swallowing with the use of both lemon swabs and ice chips. The therapist provided many different texture items for me to let Joy feel on her face, hands, and arms. She brought in ground coffee for me to use as a familiar smell and visual queues to assist in eye movement and tracking. We also have a consistent communication plan for Joy in expressing her needs non-verbally. All in all it was very encouraging and I feel gives me a lot of agency in assisting with and having an active role in her care.
We were also blessed to have Joy’s sister and nephew arrive yesterday afternoon, they are staying through Wednesday. They were able to spend a couple of hours with Joy last evening and our time of prayer and encouragement was deeply appreciated. I look forward to the support and time together during their visit and I am sure, despite her limited ability to respond, is deeply appreciated by Joy as well.
As I mentioned, I will post again when we have the CT scan results, please continue to pray for a positive outcome there and continued healing of Joy’s body, mind, and spirit.