Reflecting on Progress

Hello faithful family, friends, and followers. Thank you for finding us on the new version of CaringBridge which seems to have left our photos somewhere out in cyberspace and us questioning if there are further updates coming or if this is our new reality. Anyway, thank you so much for joining us here.

Our past week has been filled with therapy sessions, therapy homework, long walks, daily life, and some wonderful visits with friends who have been so encouraging to us. It certainly encourages Joy to hear our friends comment on the progress they have seen her make, but it is also very valuable for me to have that independent assessment as well. I know Joy has healed and grown by leaps and bounds and yet when we’re in the trenches together still struggling to identify the letter, “h,” or find the, “goat,” in a set of pictures, it can feel like slow progress indeed, when in fact, it’s just plain amazing progress, despite the remaining limitations. I want so badly to accurately portray Joy’s advances and the miraculous healing we have experienced by God’s grace and your prayers, but I also want to accurately portray the remaining challenges so that you can continue in much needed prayers for further healing.

As mentioned previously, Joy’s physical progress continues to be strong and consistent including the reduction and near elimination of her vertical diplopia. Her verbal skills in conversation are exceptional with the progress she has made but again somewhat mask the underlying aphasia that remains. We had a rather long conversation before lunch today in which I felt she was probably saying she wanted a salad for dinner tonight, but she kept saying sandwich. Between her aphasia and her apraxia, one can’t assume she means what she says or is able to say what she means. Once we pretty convincingly settled on the fact that she wanted a salad for supper, then I tried to encourage her to say it, at which point she said, “sandwich.” So as I’ve described before, I have her watch my mouth and try and repeat after me, “Sssaaallllaaaadd,” she responds with, “saaallwhich.” We try this back and forth for several iterations and today, she just could not get salad pronounced, “salanditch,” was about as close as we got. Now fortunately, and thanks to your prayers for Joy’s emotional encouragement, today was a day we could both laugh at the exercise together and it did not turn into a frustrating or depressing event for Joy and for that I am so thankful.

On that note, I would say that Joy has generally been in a much more positive emotional space and for that we thank God and you for your prayers. There are times of discouragement and frustration, but they are brief and confined to an event, not something that paralyzes her emotionally for the day as has happened in the past. Again, we thank God and thank you!

Therapy sessions continue into August and we even have therapy this Friday, July 5th. We are thankful for the wonderful therapy resources we have, even if at times, between the in person sessions and assigned homework, it can feel a bit overwhelming. We meet with the neuro-ophthalmologist on July 24th and at that time should have a better understanding of how severe Joy’s field of vision cut is on the right side.

We continue to covet and plead with you for prayers for further healing especially for the right field of vision cut (which would mean miraculous healing of brain tissue), and for Joy’s continued challenges with aphasia and apraxia. We also invite you to join us in our praise and thankfulness to God for his miraculous grace and mercy shown and provisions granted.

Thank you again for sticking with us, for your faithful and compassionate support and prayers, and for your continued interest in Joy’s healing journey, it means so much to us.