Welcome faithful family, friends, and followers to our new home. We are excited for this opportunity to continue to share Joy’s healing journey while hopefully expanding into broader aspects of exploring and pursuing encouragement and joy - physically, emotionally, and spiritually - as we walk along this path together. We thought today, Joy’s birthday, was an appropriate launch date, so I have been working feverishly to get it ready. It is good to have you here with us.
We have had a good week with some very special visits with friends that were so encouraging to us and hopefully to those we had time with. It has also been a good week for Joy’s continued recovery. As I have mentioned, we are now on our own for PT and OT homework, but are still continuing speech therapy. Joy has been working with two different therapists, one focusing on her aphasia and apraxia and the other on her voice. Recently, the therapist that is working on the aphasia, and in this case reading, told Joy she had done the best of any of her patients on a particular exercise. Then at yesterday morning’s session focused on voice, the therapist told Joy she was, “rocking it,” “a super star,” “the MVP,” and the “best patient he’d ever had” at doing the voice exercises he had assigned. Do you think she is doing a good job? 🥰
First, I am so very proud of Joy for the hard work she has demonstrated to all her caregivers. While maybe not as effusive as the above, she routinely receives positive feedback from her therapists who have appreciated her dedication and hard work. But I am also, so thankful, that in speech therapy especially, the area that has been and continues to be the most challenging for her, and in which many sessions ended with tears and frustration, that it can now be an area of clear accomplishment, affirmation, and joy, for Joy. We thank God and thank all of you for your faithful and constant prayers that have brought Joy so far and will continue to carry us into the future.
Joy’s incision from her Moh’s surgery continues to heal well, she is counting the days to when the stitches are removed on 9/16. Next week we meet with a physician who we hope will prove to be a good new primary care doctor for Joy. As many of you have commiserated with us, finding appropriate and timely primary and specialty medical care resources seems to be more and more challenging.
While significant gains have been made, we continue to covet your prayers for further healing of Joy’s aphasia and apraxia and for the needed miraculous brain function healing to restore her upper right quadrant field of vision cut. Joy works very hard at her reading and speech and is doing well, but as I have mentioned previously, the road can feel very long for my lovely, master’s degreed bride, who has to practice her abc’s daily and labors to get out almost every word she reads, still often needing help to start pronouncing even some of the simplest words. Please know we are both so thankful for the progress Joy has made, but it’s just as she often says, “I have A LOT to learn.”
Please feel free to share the link for this website with any friends or family who may not have been on CaringBridge but would be interested in having access to Joy’s story and our future musings. While we don’t have comments turned on in the blog currently, feel free to reach out with any thoughts you may have through the contact form at the bottom of our home page. We welcome your comments, feedback, and suggestions.
Thank you all for your encouraging faithfulness in your prayers, demonstrated concern and support, and for your ongoing interest in staying with us on the journey. Your company is most welcome.
