Has it been that long?

I know it has been a long time between posts, but the reality is that not much has changed since the last post. I am getting busier and busier every day. I think I mentioned in a previous post that the better Judi gets, the more time I have to spend with her to keep her going and meet her needs. Not getting much sleep these days, but hopefully we'll be over the hump before too much longer.

We did celebrate our 31st wedding anniversary on July 2 and it was a much better one than last year. It was still a very difficult day for me, but I continue to do my best to maintain the attitude that each next year will be better than the last. I am still very thankful for my time with Judi and we do our best to take advantage of the time God has given us together.

Judi continues to do well in therapy. We have started standing her up without the use of the standing frame when the male Physical Therapist works with her and I am there. We support her on both sides and let her stand. She really seems to enjoy being able to do this, but it takes a lot out of her and she only lasts a short period of time. As you can imagine, this puts a significant load on all her muscles and joints and is great exercise to try and reactivate her left leg. We did get her up in the walking harness today (11/13) and she really seemed to enjoy it. She kept her head up and tried to take a step, but the left leg still did not respond. We'll keep working this and hopefully it will come to her.

She continues to work with the iPad and even wrote my name a couple of weeks ago. There are a lot of applications that interest her and she has always been interested in technology.

Continuing to feed herself and the eye/hand coordination is getting better. She will brush her teeth sometimes, but has to be in the right mood. We have to watch her close here to ensure that the toothbrush doesn't get too far back and that she doesn't chew on it. We also use some swabs with a mouth wash on it to help clean her teeth and she really likes to do that herself. These are all good signs and we continue to encourage her to do anything she can for herself.

She is definitely saying a few words every now and then. I believe she is almost there and the words that come out are those that are a reflex where she doesn't have to think much about them. I can't wait until she can put it all together here since it opens so many new doors for her.

Her awareness continues to improve and her ability to interact is improving as well. She is starting to use sign language again. We had made a lot of progress before the infection and she is just starting to pick that up again. It is good to see her thinking about what she wants to say and then converting it to the appropriate sign. This is also indicative of an improving comprehension of tasks and concepts. She has also started reaching out for stuff in the grocery store and looking hard at the packages. I think she is trying to read them and it stimulates memories for her. She also loves to open the freezer doors to see how the doors work and what might be inside. As you can imagine, it takes me a lot longer at the store these days, but if it helps her learn, I'll take whatever time it takes.

We are continuing the neurofeedback (NF) and have started training new sites to bring her brain functions back to a stable and active state. We are trying to get to the point where we can focus on the speech center and hopefully that will be enough to help her begin talking again. I desperately need to have a good feedback mechanism from her so that we can focus her therapy as well respond more effectively to her needs. I am always worried that she needs something that I am not aware of because of this gap.

We have definitely entered the defiant stage and some days that girl tests every bit of patience I have! Unfortunately, Judi was able to do that BEFORE the injury so I am in for a rough road I am afraid. This is very common for people recovering from a brain injury and it usually passes. Say an extra prayer for me if you get the opportunity.

We did have a tough day Monday (7/11). Judi had a series of seizures that were fairly significant. Fortunately we have the appropriate drugs to intervene at home and can usually work through them reasonably well. I have become a fairly capable over the phone Dr these days and the use of a speaker phone where I can talk Judi through them helps her a great deal. Seizures still take a great deal of energy out of all of us, but I hope they will diminish as she continues to work through her brain recovery. So far all of her Drs agree that we want to allow her to continue recovering and not try to medicate her to the point where the seizures completely stop. Recognize that the way the anti-seizure meds work is to suppress some of the brain functions which is what we do not want to do. As long as we are able to manage her blood pressure and general functions, the seizures are not really harmful to her other than scaring her a bit (she is getting used to them now I think) and the fact that they drain her energy. There are risks as in most things like this, but I am sure Judi would rather be able to live as normal a life as possible as opposed to being medicated to the point where she is essentially sedated.

I think that is most of the big stuff. Feel free to come and see her. She enjoys the company and I know she gets tired of listening to me all the time. Thanx as always for the thoughts and prayers. Judi has come a long way, but we have a long road left in front of us and I would appreciate your continued prayers.

Steve