Hello faithful family, friends, and followers. Yesterday saw the conclusion of Joy’s OT therapy and as with PT, Joy was commended for her hard work and well earned progress. Happy tears for us and for each of the therapists we have worked with affirmed their dedication to Joy’s healing and recovery, but also their appreciation for a patient as committed as Joy.
For the time being, Speech Therapy will be our only outpatient sessions, but of course we have a long list of homework assignments for each discipline which we work at daily. I am not going to miss getting up and out of the house for some of the early, seven times a week therapy sessions, but I will miss the dedicated staff which have been so gracious and encouraging to us. I am glad that for the foreseeable future we will still be traveling for Speech probably once a week and so be able to continue to appreciate seeing all the other courageous souls who come to Courage Kenny (an apt name), many with much more severe challenges than Joy is dealing with. Yet, they come with smiles on their faces and a willingness to push their injured bodies and minds to be all they can be and lead life to the best of their abilities. It is humbling to see and I think we may just need to stop in now and then after we’ve completed Speech to be reminded of what courage looks like in the midst of physical and cognitive challenges and of how thankful we are to have had this glimpse into the world of so many others that our “normal” life never caused us to see.
Joy has continued to make significant progress in her reading. It is still a slow, painstaking, and tiring process, but she is so faithful and committed that I am sure her progress with continue. She is doing a better job with sounding out words, but still gets caught unexpectedly, sometimes with the simplest of words. This morning she was doing well and then got stuck on, “well,” but I am so thankful that she is feeling good about her gains, so that when she does get stuck or has a harder day, she is able to move on without it bringing her down emotionally.
Last Friday we watched our grandsons for a couple hours and will do that again this Friday and the following week. We’re not on a fixed schedule with watching them, but we are happy it is working out to help with some of the coverage again.
As I’ve mentioned previously, Joy has her Moh’s surgery on Monday. We are praying for “one and done,” one layer excised that gets all the cancer. Please join us in that prayer.
We have had some particularly sweet times with dear friends who encourage us beyond words. You have all come along side us in such a wonderful way and we thank you, but this week we were doubly blessed by being to sit across from friends who intimately walk our life journey with us and assure us of their understanding even when words are insufficient.
While we are so thankful for the gains Joy has made on her healing journey, we continue to covet your prayers especially for healing of her right field of vision cut and for continued healing of her aphasia and apraxia. And as noted above, please hold her up in prayer for her Moh’s surgery on Monday.
Once again, we cannot thank you enough for taking your valuable time to check in on Joy’s healing/recovery journey and to remember us in your faithful prayers. The gains aren’t as dramatic and in many ways, our life is quite normal, which is a testament to your prayers and God’s grace and mercy shown us. But it is all the more reason that we are grateful to you for your willingness to stick with us in these more normal times, because your continued thoughts and prayers are needed and valued oh so much.