Hello faithful family, friends and followers and thank you again for joining us here. Pictures are back in CaringBridge, but I do apologize to those of you who have had trouble getting back into the site and/or app. Thank you for your persistence.
We hope you all had a safe and happy 4th of July holiday. Our week included therapy, more homework, more long walks, and more time with friends and family. We had the opportunity to have more time with our grandsons this week and grandma was very pleased she could hoist Revan off the floor to hold him as well as get down and up from the floor to play with him 🥰. We enjoyed time with Marc and his family at a park and at their home watching the boys and time with Alyx, Ethan, and Nova walking along the recently flooded Mississippi and hitting the St. Paul Farmer’s Market. We also enjoyed some wonderful time with friends which is alway encouraging. As I mentioned in my last post hearing from friends about the advances they see in Joy’s progress between visits encourages and lifts both our hearts.
Joy continues to do a remarkable job. Day in and day out she demonstrates an indomitable spirit working so hard at her therapy exercises for PT, OT, and Speech. While she has her down moments, she is by and far the most courageous and beautiful person you could ever know and that I am so privileged to share life with. Despite her many needs she is always concerned about the needs and well being of others. She’s already planning the thank-you’s she wants to write to our therapists and she is more concerned about what she wants to give to her friends at a yet to be planned birthday recognition get together for her and another friend celebrating birthdays in August, than about letting others celebrate her. Her sweet smile melts my heart and I have to hold back tears when I see her smile through her discomfort and limitations in her determination to be all she can be.
As I have mentioned previously we’ve been working on reading/writing homework as a part of Speech Therapy, but at the beginning of the week Joy shared that she wanted to try and start reading the Psalms. So each day after breakfast, we have been working through a Psalm or portion of a Psalm painstakingly word by word, letting Joy lead and attempt as many words as she can, me coaching and assisting pronunciation as needed. She has progressed amazingly well and we both thank and praise God for his grace and mercy in the words she is able to figure out on her own and hopefully add with my help. We both end up frequently in happy tears as verses are read aloud by Joy and understood. At the same time please continue your prayers for further healing of her aphasia and apraxia because finding certain letters of the alphabet and recognizing and sounding out many words still requires a Herculean effort on her part.
We so very much appreciate your willingness to keep Joy in your prayers, again, for healing of her aphasia, apraxia, her right field of vision cut, and for improved cognition and recognition of words, concepts, and things in general. She is doing a remarkable job in conversations with friends and family so miraculously, but there are still many aspects of “doing life” that need to be relearned or at least refreshed. Another prayer request I would add is for wisdom and discernment as we wind down therapies in the next two to six weeks. We are certainly seeking input from our therapists and physicians, but much of the decision comes down to us as to when we want to launch completely on our own. We’d also appreciate prayers for wisdom in balancing the work of rehabilitation with the need for rest and recuperation. So while we have our homework, we’ve given you yours as well, and we cannot begin to thank you enough for taking that prayer homework on - it means so much to us ❤️.
