January 2014

1/2/14 (Rachel Hanson) David is becoming more confident with talking and is doing more and more verbally. It is still hard to understand him a lot but every day, his pronunciation and volume make little strides. He amazed me last night by "singing" 3 complete songs to me! I put singing in quotations because his singing isn't real melodious yet...it's more of a "joyful noise" I could understand almost every single word in the first song. It was incredible. Just a couple months ago, he was needing lots of prompting to even get "Happy Birthday" out. It thrills my soul to hear him calling out hymns in breaking of bread and then joining in singing. It's so neat to see specific prayers being answered one at a time. It's like watching a caterpillar morph into a butterfly...it's an amazing journey God has put us on. And like the butterfly emerging from the cocoon, it has it's not-so-glorious, painful moments as well. David is completely off gabapentin now. I don't want to be dogmatic about this because I'm not a doctor or anything, but I think he is experiencing withdrawal symptoms. In my small amount of research, it seems that one can have a biotin (B vitamin) deficiency as a result of being on gabapentin for an extended period of time. Since quitting gabapentin, he is experienced extreme itchiness, choking sensation, restless legs and other things that seem to point toward a biotin deficiency. The itchiness is incredibly intolerable and along with choking more on his saliva, it makes it difficult for him to sleep. It makes it difficult for me to sleep too! I am experimenting with adding Brewer's yeast into his diet to supplement with more B vitamins. We are really looking forward to getting rid of the g-tube soon. David is totally eating/drinking by mouth and I'm incorporating more texture into his foods so he's mostly on a mechanical soft diet now. Because of the way the treadmill harness system is set up, he cannot work on walking on the treadmill until it's out!

1/13/14 (Rachel Hanson) David is becoming increasingly more clear with speech. We've noticed a drastic change in the last two weeks. His speech therapist is working with him on longer sentences and is starting to work on cognitive issues that are coming to the surface as his speech improves. Last Friday, David got his g-tube removed! We all (the caregiver, David, Jocelyn and I) had fevers and colds that day...otherwise we would have been much more excited! On Christmas day, Jocelyn had tried to remove it herself but was unsuccessful and caused Daddy some stomach pain instead. So when the doctor took it out skillfully, David commented that he did a much better job than Jocelyn! I guess Jocelyn is fired. Sometimes I get nervous about David having another seizure and setting him back again but then God reminds me He is in control. I've been encouraged by a story of two monks lately: "'I need oil,' said an ancient monk, so he planted an olive sapling. 'Lord,' he prayed, 'it needs rain that its tender roots may drink and swell. Send gentle showers.' And the Lord sent gentle showers. 'Lord,' prayed the monk, 'my tree needs sun. Send sun, I pray thee.' And the sun shone, gilding the dripping clouds. 'Now frost, my Lord, to brace its tissues,' cried the monk. And behold, the little tree stood sparkling with frost, but at evening it died. Then the monk sought the cell of a brother monk, and told his strange experience. 'I, too, planted a little tree,' he said, 'and see! It thrives well. But I entrust my tree to its God. He who made it knows better what it needs than a man like me. I laid no condition. I fixed not ways or means. 'Lord, send what it needs,' I prayed, 'storm or sunshine, wind rain, or frost. Thou hast made it and Thou dost know.'" --Streams in the Desert David gets to try crawling on the treadmill tomorrow! Pray for contentment for David and I. We have so much, so much to be thankful for, so many riches (material, non-material, and spiritual). Why are our eyes so swift to look down when we have so much??

1/23/14 (Rachel Hanson)David's cognitive progress is coming along by leaps and bounds! It's really amazing to watch. I've probably said this before but it's like watching a caterpillar emerge from its cocoon, transformed into a beautiful butterfly! It's not like everything is perfect or that life isn't hard still but David is doing so much better. His recovery seems to be speeding up, at least in the cognitive realm. For the last few months (at least 6 months), he's been in a stage that's typical frontal lobe damage symptoms. But recently, he's been regaining more control over impulsive, inappropriate behavior/words. We've come up with a sign that works pretty good when his brain is telling him to spit out stuff without a filter. So instead of blurting out something embarrassing, he shows me he's biting his tongue. It may sound silly, but it works. David is also progressing rapidly in "executive functions". In layman's terms, this means: "Being able to focus, hold, and work with information in mind, filter distractions, and switch gears is like having an air traffic control system at a busy airport to manage the arrivals and departures of dozens of planes on multiple runways. In the brain, this air traffic control mechanism is called executive functioning, a group of skills that helps us to focus on multiple streams of information at the same time, and revise plans as necessary." --- http://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/multimedia/videos/inbrief_series/inbrief_executive_function/ David has initiated organizing a Bible Study and wants to start door-to-door evangelism outreach too. (This idea may have to wait until spring...) This is the old David! To be able to put all the things together to do these things, is nothing short of incredible. The speech therapist and neurologist acknowledge, in their mostly godless semantics, that David has "a special inner strength" and has exceeded prognostic expectations. We know his inner strength is from the Lord. "I can do ALL things through Christ which strengtheneth me." Philippians 4:13 Today was an "off day" where we had no therapy or doctor's appointments so we had a rush-free morning. The speech therapist wants David to start helping me with meal-planning, grocery lists, etc... so I decided to take it to the next level and have him plan his breakfast and direct/help me make it. He used to work at Burger King, so he wanted a croissant-wich, hash browns and coffee. We didn't have croissants so we improvised with refrigerated biscuits. He was able to do about 85% of the "bossing" accurately and helped me cut the biscuit, slather some mayo on, cut cheese, and assemble it. He was very happy with his breakfast this morning and he just glowed because I think it made him feel rather accomplished to be helping me. He was able to read Jocelyn a story last night and was able to choose appropriate ways to soothe her when she was crying. You have no idea what this does to my soul to have my husband starting to begin to be involved actively in our lives again. David's physical recovery has been slower but maybe his brain can only focus on one part of recovery at a time. Yesterday they had about 5 or 6 therapists assisting him in an overhead harness system to take about 50 steps. It was great but he was exhausted! Thank you all for praying continually for us, even after over a year and all your notes/ words of encouragement. We do feel borne up on the everlasting arms sometimes, carrying us up above our struggles, beyond human strength and joy.