Good evening and thank you again for your faithful and compassionate prayers for Joy and our family. We’ve continued to have good days with therapy sessions, therapy homework, walks (today Joy made it the entire circumference around Central Park Lake by our townhouse which is 0.83 miles), more visits with friends, and just taking care of household business and daily living as a team. Oh, and in another surprise, Joy finished knitting two baby hats and then picked up the towel embroidery project she had with her on our trip and proved she can not only knit, but do her needlepoint as well! She’s amazing!
We continue to be encouraged by the use of the Tactus Therapy Aphasia app recommended by speech therapy which is slowly, very slowly, but seemingly surely, opening the door to Joy’s connection of speech, written word, and objects/images. Joy requires frequent rests, but we feel we’re finding the rhythm of balancing work, rest, and play. Today’s physical therapy session had the feel of shifting from “the basics” to “getting back to normal.” Improving balance, walking faster, straighter, more naturally, etc. While Joy has excelled in her standing balance, there is still room for improvement in moving balance which much of our new homework focused on today.
We have not begun outpatient OT yet, so we will see next Monday when we start that what it adds to the picture. And while we have follow ups in the next couple of weeks with orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, ENT, and physical medicine/rehabilitation, we don’t see the neuro-ophthmologist until July 24th. On the one hand, we have been told that we don’t want to meet with the ophthalmologist too soon, because Joy’s eyes and optical center of the brain may still be adjusting, but it’s still hard to wait and feel in limbo as she faithfully switches back and forth between her glasses taped to cover one eye on one day and then the other the next.
As I’ve said many times before, we cannot thank you enough for your faithful prayers for healing and encouragement. I credit those prayers in large part for the overwhelming sense of our Heavenly Father’s sufficiency to hold us and carry us through this time. In fact, I came across what felt was like the perfect encapsulation of that sufficiency yesterday when I read Eugene Peterson’s The Message paraphrase of Paul’s letter to the Colossians chapter 1, verses 11-12. Paul says, “We pray that you’ll have the strength to stick it out over the long haul - not the grim strength of gritting your teeth but the glory-strength God gives. It is strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy, thanking the Father who makes us strong enough to take part in everything bright and beautiful that he has for us.”
It truly feels like you have been praying Paul’s prayer for us because I know we would not have, “the strength to stick it out over the long haul,” with only the, “grim strength of gritting your teeth,” but I can truly say, and thank God and all of you so much, that we have been blessed to experience, “the glory-strength God gives... a strength that endures the unendurable and spills over into joy…” So, please, please stay faithful in those prayers!
