There's this verse in I John that I've been mulling over. It just amazes me. I think about how Jesus overcame the world and if He can overcome death and the world and has given us the Holy Spirit (indwelling believers). If He has done all this, do we not have amazing power through Him, as Christians? So here's the verse to satisfy your curiosity: "For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world -- our faith." I John 5:4 Wow. Seems so simple...until you have a brain injury that wipes out your moral compass and destroys any control you had or victories you thought you had over sin in your life. It takes away any initiative to do right, to make good choices. You see, the frontal lobe is responsible for giving you control over the stuff the comes from the depths of your heart out of your mouth or actions. When it gets damaged as severely as David's did, it becomes a playground for Satan to attack weaknesses. BUT, David has God's power available to him to overcome -- even medically impossible injuries to the brain.
I will not go into explicit detail as to David's struggles but I will say that we've been begging God to give him victory because it's destructive. He's been struggling and praying, struggling and praying for a long time. Finally, David initiated a move in his life that makes this problem almost non-existent. This is a miracle!!
On a different note, David's progress has kind of slowed way down. We don't get real exciting bursts of progress lately. We took him off his spasticity medication, hoping he didn't need it anymore but I'm starting to think he does need it. :( His walking isn't doing very well. His therapies decided to taper off for awhile because he wasn't motivated at all and wasn't really making much progress. We're still doing things at home. My latest tactic is to try "working from the ground up". Sort of a NDT (neurodevelopmental technique) approach. So I'm starting him like a baby develops, starting getting him stronger on his stomach, lifting his head and trunk up, propping himself up on his elbows, pushups, etc... on up the chain. Right now we're working on balancing in quadruped (hands and knees position). He did really well today and was able to balance there for about a minute almost by himself. Since I've changed the caregiver schedule so we don't have a caregiver at night, I do David's cares at night. We're hitting dressing/undressing hard at night. He's improving. It's challenging doing everything with one "good" arm and poor balance but it's getting better and I think he's gaining some confidence. Lately, the changes I notice are subtle. His smile is wider and more even (he's got his goofy cheesy smile back!). He's starting to "get" things and laugh at subtleties more and more. He's getting better at thinking outside his little bubble and realizing other people have needs and desires that might be different than his own. He's getting better at knowing how to engage strangers with more varied and appropriate questions and conversation and come up with more novel, realistic ideas or problem-solving tactics that actually work. (To give to you an idea of how this has improved...last year about this time, when asked to problem-solve, he couldn't, period. He would just say, "Cry for help!" no matter what or how simple the problem was.) David is still having bad headaches daily. We've tried a whole gamut of medications, supplements, oils, etc... to try to relieve them, at no avail. We've started him going to a chiropractor the last two weeks. Today, he had 4 HOURS of no headache after his adjustment! His night pain medication worked better too.
