Good evening and once again I thank you for your amazing support and dedication to faithfully following Joy on her journey. Today we had another remarkable day of PT, OT, and ST. With Caitlyn’s excellent updates over the weekend and the productive therapy day today, I feel like all I need to say is ditto. However, along with the amazing physical progress and recognizable gains in cognition, have come increasing levels of frustration and sadness on Joy’s part. She is more and more aware of how severely damaged her brain and body are. The stress of the day has then been coming out at night as she perseverates over how life has changed and how frustrated she is.
Joy has walked up to 250 feet, she can walk without the walker, she is doing stairs and inclines, multiple strengthening and endurance exercises for her arms, hands and fingers, practiced getting in a car, and getting into a shower. Speaking of a shower, we are hoping to have her staples removed in the next day or two and with that she can actually have a shower which she is very excited about. After not eating for so long and having the tracheostomy, Joy has been graduating to different levels of food for her meals and today, after demonstrating to the speech therapist that she could eat pizza and chocolate chip cookies, got upgraded to regular diet, no restrictions and so we celebrated with dinner together. We also spent some time cuddling on the couch in an area on the unit set up like an apartment.
Everyone around Joy and especially the therapists and doctors marvel at her progress, she, on the other hand, gets very frustrated with her inability to use her mind and body the way she remembers she could. So once again, please continue to pray for Joy’s many physical needs for healing as well as healing for her mind and sweet, sweet spirit.
Your faithfulness over the last 44 days has blessed us more than words can say.
