Thank you again for your faithful attention, prayers, and compassion for Joy and our family. Our last couple of days have been again, a study in contrasts. We had very hard, yet good speech therapy visits, but Joy was able to spend time with two long term friends who were a tremendous encouragement to her, and we were able to take time for a joint errand, that resulted in great news and encouragement.
Over the last two days, Joy did the most thorough speech therapy assessments for speaking, listening, and recognition she has done to date. Thankfully, the speech therapist was wonderful and very positive with Joy so that despite the very challenging outcomes, Joy was not discouraged and was able to maintain a positive attitude throughout. Once again, however, I share this to encourage you in focusing your prayers for Joy’s recovery from her very significant deficits. I think I caught off guard more than anything because Joy and I have wonderful times together at home and when we are out and are communicating very well with each other, so I tend to forget just how much is currently lost for Joy since her injury.
Here are some examples, when asked, Joy was unable to name the following objects: a comb, a safety pin, a hammer, a screwdriver, a book, a rubber band, a flower, a fork, a spoon, a knife, a book of matches, a padlock, a paperclip… She did name a pencil and a coffee cup, which does show just how important our coffee is to us. When asked to point to each of six color squares, red, brown, blue, green, black, and yellow, she got every one wrong. When asked to point to almost every body part you can name she again got all of them wrong. When asked to name as many animals as she could, she looked at the therapist and said, “I don’t know what you are asking me,” and was not able to name a single animal. And, these are only a few examples from the overall assessment. Again, we are thankful for the thoroughness of the assessment and are praying earnestly that the outcomes help develop the best course of therapy for Joy. And as I mentioned earlier, I am very thankful for the therapist we are working with because she has been able to keep Joy positive throughout the process.
Turning to the more positive, Joy’s time with two friends the last two days has been a tremendous encouragement for her and lifted her spirits despite the challenging therapy times.
On another positive note, yesterday brought us good news in a special way. Three weeks ago a friend visited Joy in the hospital and among other gifts put a friendship ring on Joy’s ring finger. After the friend left, I looked at Joy and said, that’s very nice, but that’s not the ring that goes on that finger, that’s for your wedding ring. Joy’s eye’s got literally as big as saucers, filled with tears and she said, “You mean you have it?” I had not even been aware she was missing her ring, but I was able to take it out and show it to her and she wept and wept very happy tears. However, the ring appeared to me to be damaged. It was caked with gunk from the ER so it wasn’t clear if all the stones were there, and a gold wire was protruding from under the main setting, so I had not wanted to disturb it until we could have a jeweler look at it. Well yesterday was that day. We drove together to Ridgedale Mall and to Helzberg Diamonds, the store we had purchased the ring at 27 years ago for our 20th wedding anniversary and asked for their assessment. Once the gunk was all cleared away, the gold wire turned out to be a pulled link from the necklace Joy was wearing at the time and the ring itself was in perfect condition, all the diamonds were there, and the settings all intact. So there were more happy tears. The ring did stay at the store to be resized up a half size to adjust for a little arthritis, but we’ll be getting it in the the next week or so and look forward to it again adorning Joy’s beautiful hand.
Thank you again and again and again and again, because we just can’t say that enough. When I feel gut-punched at Joy not being able to point to her nose when asked, or name an animal, or recognize a paperclip, I hold tightly to the sufficiency of our Heavenly Father and to the knowledge of all of you who are holding Joy faithfully in your prayers before Him. You are all valued more than you will ever know.