Hello faithful family, friends, and followers.
We are pleased to report this morning that Joy’s surgery yesterday on her wrist to remove the metal plate and 8 screws used to repair her fracture in Florida, went extremely well, quickly, and without complications (see before and after pics). As I have mentioned previously, while the orthopedic surgeon here agreed the use of the plate and screws was appropriate to repair the wrist, keeping the plate in, presented a risk for tendon damage in the future, so removal was basically, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” The surgeon actually used those words. 😊 We praise God for the wonderful outcome.
In our therapy, our homework, and for your prayers, we are back to the basics. A few weeks ago I would share that we were practicing the abc’s and vowel sounds, which Joy did very well with, and her reading level seemed to make major gains. As a result, we backed off some of the formal lessons and I just encouraged Joy with her reading which she did faithfully. However, while her word pronunciation and pace of reading improved, we recently discovered, as I noted in my last post, that comprehension of many words and concepts remains an issue. Example, we realized that Joy lost all concept of shapes. She did not understand and could not identify a circle, square, rectangle, triangle, or oval, not one shape, nothing, nada, zip. When asked to point to the circle in a set of six pictures, even though the circle was the only shape among the choices, she was totally stumped, it just made no sense to her. While that is only one example, there were other words and concepts that we’ve discovered she does a good job of reading and working around in conversation, but for which she has no idea of their meaning. As a result, we’ve gone back to the basics in the Tactus Aphasia app with a focus on comprehension and broader understanding. We’re are also focusing on “working memory” exercises, another area that a recent assessment highlighted for improvement. As I’ve said with other such discoveries, it’s hard to see my brilliant wife not be able to recognize a circle or square, but I am thankful that we have a clear area of focus for our work and the tools we feel will definitely help address Joy’s leaning needs in these areas.
Tomorrow we are traveling to visit Joy’s mom for her 97th birthday. She was actually hospitalized yesterday for a number of reasons, so we are not sure if we are visiting her at her assisted living or in the hospital, but we will visit her nonetheless.
Returning to Joy’s surgery, while everything went extremely well, I have to say it was rather triggering from a PTSD perspective. Seeing Joy in a hospital gown, in a hospital bed, with IV and ECG and Oximetry leads, with monitors flashing and beeping, was well, rather challenging. But probably the most impactful was the nerve block in Joy’s right arm which paralyzed it completely, just like it was for 3-4 weeks in FL. While Joy’s full right side paralysis after the accident eased in stages, first the facial droop resolved, then after a couple weeks Joy moved her right toes and then leg, it was 3 weeks before we saw even a glimpse of arm movement and it was yet another week before the fingers started working. In Florida I would work to flex Joy’s arm and fingers each day, stroking her arm and kissing her fingers, praying and pleading that she would be able to feel my touch, but day after day, I’d lay her limp arm and fingers back down on the pillow, until the days of miracles began in her arm and hand movements. While her nerve blocked arm was somewhat triggering during the day and evening, when I woke at 11:00pm and saw Joy was awake and the her forearm and hand were still completely paralyzed, it was hard to suppress the panic of, “what if something went wrong?” While I finally got back to sleep, I awoke at 2:58am and noticed Joy had repositioned her arm, so I reached out to touch her fingers and she immediately moved them briskly and showed me she could move her whole arm and all fingers with no pain. We were both elated and Joy spontaneously started singing the Doxology, in which I quickly joined her. So through tears, at 2:58am we sang:
Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him all creatures here below,
Praise Him above ye heavenly host,
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Amen
And I can’t think of a better way to sign off this week than on that note of praise. Thank you all for your interest, your prayers, and your compassionate support. Your faithful presence with us, keeps us going on this long journey we are traveling together. More next week…
