Good evening, most of us have been together for over two months now and we can’t thank you enough for your faithful compassion and prayers for Joy and our family.
Things have been going well in the “doing daily life” category. Joy continues to do very well physically and we seem to have a good routine down for our responsibilities throughout the day. But yesterday, things seemed to come crashing down on Joy. I would say she wept the hardest I have seen her weep since the accident. She kept saying, “I can see my family and friends in my mind, and I pray for them, but I don’t know their names, I can’t look them up on my phone because I can’t see and can’t read their names. There’s so much I can’t do, I want my family and friends to know how much I love them and am praying for them, but I can’t tell them, because I don’t recognize or know/remember their names. What will my life be?” And that was the repeated theme of pain for sometime last evening. As I mentioned in a previous post, so many things feel quite normal and then when Joy can’t read, “My birthday is 8/30/55” or “We have two grandchildren” the reality of her continued language struggles hits home, and hit home they did with her yesterday.
We got through the night and began the day somewhat pensively because today saw our first assessment sessions for Speech and PT at Courage Kenny Golden Valley (we start OT on the 20th). Thankfully the sessions went very well. While Joy has probably not gained any ground in Speech Therapy, she did a good job with the therapist and expressed herself very well. She was also very pleased when the therapist agreed to 3 speech therapy sessions per week, starting next week.
We then had our PT assessment and here is where Joy excelled. She had clearly gained ground even since we left inpatient rehab last Thursday. She significantly increased her distance on the “six minute walk” assessment. And her balance has improved as well. For balance or “fall risk” the therapists use a standardized assessment on which a score of 56, qualifies as “no longer a fall risk.” On Joy’s first assessment at Abbott rehab she scored a 30, on discharge from inpatient rehab she scored a 41, and today, she scored a 50! Clearly on the physical front she continues to excel and for that we thank God and all of you for your faithful prayers on Joy’s and our behalf.
I call tomorrow morning to get our 3 times a week speech and 2 times a week PT, plus a day in fitness center scheduled. We also meet with a physician from Joy’s primary care clinic tomorrow (her primary care physician was booked out for weeks, so we are meeting with an associate), then on Friday Joy has her first hand therapy appointment. In addition to those appointments, we also have upcoming visits with an orthopedic surgeon, a neurosurgeon, an ENT, and neuro-ophthalmologist. So in our spare time we are… Anyway, we are thankful for the resources available to us and we are looking forward to fully engaging them.
As we have asked before, please continue to pray for Joy’s language center healing, healing for eyesight, and especially now healing for her emotional well being as she continues to face our new reality, which we earnestly pray will change for the better, but prayers for addressing the present are much appreciated. Once again, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts 🙏🏻❤️