Wednesday, January 30, 2013

January 30, 2013

A double milestone day...
it's the 6-month anniversary of John's accident AND his birthday (I won't give the year away, but if you look closely at the balloons from Pat and Fred, you can figure it out...)


John celebrated with:
* a trip to St. Joe's, where we joined them for the all-school Mass celebrating the beginning of the 2nd semester -- and John enjoyed having the students serenade him with "Happy Birthday" and getting a fun bunch of balloons --  our house is very cheery now, just in time for the temperature to drastically drop again.


* a therapy session in the pool (does this count towards his celebration???), where he got a great workout. On the therapy front, we're pleased to report that his shoulder seems to be improving since the shot.

* dinner at Fiddler's Hearth.


* cake and presents (and we're hoping a quiet evening -- read: a sleeping 5-year-old -- will follow shortly...

 

 

I have moments where it's still hard to process that this has happened to John, but I watch his fierce determination to continue rehabbing and building up his strength, and I find myself grateful for this opportunity to witness his strength and understand his love for us in such a profound way. While ADLs (activities of daily living) are a daily challenge, I am confident in his ability to meet them with grace. I can't imagine that I'll ever be thankful that wave knocked our life around (literally and figuratively), but I am grateful beyond words that we are all still standing... thank you all for your love, prayers, and support over the past few months!

Thursday, January 17, 2013

January 17, 2013

Meeting the new doctor: check
Telling John's story again: check [I have learned more about the spinal cord than I ever thought I would know...]
Hearing another doctor say his progress is great: check!

All in all -- a successful doctor's appointment. And, oh yeah -- we got a diagnosis for the shoulder: capsulitis. hat is capsulitis, you ask? From the ever-popular Wikipedia:

Frozen shoulder, medically referred to as adhesive capsulitis, is a disorder in which the shoulder capsule, the connective tissue surrounding the glenohumeral joint of the shoulder, becomes inflamed and stiff, greatly restricting motion and causing chronic pain.

The treatment was a cortisone shot (with a long needle -- yuck!) and more range of motion exercises in PT. So far, it's feeling better -- and John got out of bed with minimal pain Friday morning!

Monday, January 14, 2013

January 14, 2013

Just when I was starting to think we'd maybe hit a plateau -- and John was starting to be bored by therapy -- he had a wonderful PT session today.

I was working in the waiting room and saw him and Marilyn pass by out of the corner of my eye. John was sort of dribbling a soccer ball (definitely pushing it down the hall with his feet), as they walked from the treatment room out to the lobby. And then this weird thud -- thud -- thud noise interrupted my proofreading. So I wandered out into the lobby, and saw my husband kicking a soccer ball against the wall! He may not be ready to exercise his 4 years of eligibility on the ND soccer team (yet!), but he was able to keep his balance while he kicked the ball a few times! Then he got to hit a tennis ball with a racket for a couple of minutes, which gave him the chance to work on side-to-side movement. Again -- far from ready for a real court, but by summer time, he should be able to play with Nora, a thought which makes my heart burst with joy and gratitude -- and pride in his determination and hard work.

Not surprisingly, he topped off this morning's therapy session with a good long nap this afternoon.

He has hit a small speed bump in the recovery road -- his right shoulder and arm have been bothering him for a long time, and although OT and PT have been working strengthening the muscles all around them, both Angie and Marilyn think he has tendinitis in the shoulder. Since iontophoresis and taping it aren't really helping, he needs to see an orthopedic doctor to see if there's an underlying issue causing the pain. So we get to meet another doctor on Thursday.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Sharing the wealth, 01-01-13

While John was still in ICU, our brother-in-law's sister-in-law's mother (did you follow that?) gave us a bottle of Lourdes water that I used daily to bless John and his body. The bottle flew with us to Chicago, and stayed in the drawer in John's room at RIC, and I bleesed him on each visit.Although the feel of the cold water was at times a little painful for John's senstive skin, the water's healing powers were worth it. This weekend, on the 5-month anniversary of John's accident, we passed on the bottle to a neighbor whose teenage son is fighting his own battle in ICU. And the bottle gave me another sign of John's healing: the fact that I could let it go to pass it on to someone who now needed it more than us was a poignant clue thatwe're making progress here.
A well-used bottle of holy water from Lourdes

Please add our neighbor's son to your prayers. He has a very long journey ahead of him, but the prognosis is hopeful.

Happy New Year!

From our priest's homliy today for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God: "The story of the Nativity is not just a story of the beginning of life; it is a story of life interrupted... In the sorrows and the setbacks, in the joys and the glorias, God was with Mary always." What a comforting message as we enter this new year.

Last night, we celebrated how far we've come on this journey together with a small reminder of the way we spent our first married New Year's eve:



And we toasted our love for each other with our wedding flutes (given to us by our dear friends from Chapin). And we even made it up til midnight, saying a bittersweet goodbye to 2012. We made it! Tomorrow we'll look ahead at the hard work that still awaits John, but for now we pause to savor how far we've come.