Good evening and thank you again for your faithful compassionate prayers for Joy and our family.
Today was another intensive therapy day for Joy and she did very well. Yesterday she climbed 24 stairs in the building’s stairwell and today did the same without breaking a sweat. It’s 17 steps from our first floor to the second, so she’s got that and then some. She also mixed up and baked a batch of chocolate chip cookies which actually ended up being more physically taxing than the stairs. It may have been because she was balancing more standing at the kitchen counter as she was using her hands to assemble the ingredients and putting the dough on the cookie sheet and into the oven.
Joy continues to charm the staff with her graciousness and appreciation. We are now close enough to leaving that some staff are saying their goodbyes because they won’t work again until after we’re gone. Joy’s increasingly excited about going home which is a “joy” to see.
The sobering part of our present reality was a visit from the neurosurgeon’s service we had asked for a referral to. We are very thankful to have made the connection with a neurosurgeon here who can monitor Joy’s continued recovery from her brain surgeries performed in Florida. At the same time, the visit was sobering as they described the latest CT scan done yesterday that showed the physical changes to Joy’s brain since the damage done by the accident. That is our present reality, which we continue to pray can change, either through miraculous regeneration of brain tissue or through the brain’s neuroplasticity creating new neuro pathways in undamaged areas. Nonetheless, it was sobering to hear.
Please continue to pray earnestly for Joy’s brain healing, physical, language, and sight healing. Again, also please pray for our wisdom and discernment, strength and endurance as we make the transition home. I will plan to post next on Thursday evening after our homecoming, but we count on your faithful prayers to buoy us on this next step of our journey. We cannot thank you all enough. 🙏