The Asher Update

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August 02, 2005

A Shepherd Morning, August 2, 2005

today is gloria's birthday. it is hard to think about birthdays. my birthday was june 6, a little less than 2 weeks after asher's fall. he was still in a coma in icu and was still waiting for his 3rd and longest surgery that would try and pull his T5 vertebrae back in line with the rest of his spine. the last thing i wanted to think about was a birthday. i knew that i couldn't stop having a birthday, but i did my best to ask people to leave the word "happy" out of their expressed wishes for me throughout that day. no amount of wishing expressed to me personally, or otherwise would have been able to make that a "happy" birthday. i didn't want presents, i didn't want cards, i didn't want a cake, all i wanted was my son to continue to live and to have his health restored. it was difficult for everyone i ran into that day to just say "birthday" (try it some time. it is really awkward to just say 'birthday to someone), though, but most people were able to honor my wishes, and as hard as it might be to believe it was more of a help to me in getting through that day than anyone would have probably realized.

as hard as i know that it is for gloria to have a "happy" birthday today even though asher is out of his coma, fully awake, and undergoing spinal rehab, celebrating such an occaision is almost beyond even consideration. we are able to celebrate it, though. it is hard, i would think (but i am not gloria and can only speak for myself) not to receive the "happy" in birthday when it is being spoken to you by your son. asher told gloria happy birthday this morning on the phone before she came back to the shepherd center after spending the night in the hotel where we are staying (last night was my turn to spend the night with asher).

i wish that asher was, himself, having a good day today on his mom's birthday. yesterday when i came back to atlanta from chattanooga after going there to take care of some personal and widows ministry business i found that asher had had a very hard day. usually, after i have been gone, even if it is just for a few hours, asher has really missed me and lets me know it almost immediately when i get back. as soon as i came into his room and came over to the bed to see him, though, i knew that the day was not going well by his almost non-response to my being there. it basically went downhill from there.

earlier in the day his stomach had been really upset and he had even thrown up at one point. he didn't have a virus or anything, rather it was related to something else that was physically going on with him. the result was that he had periods of extreme agitation through the rest of the day and even into much of the evening. this also seemed to cause him not to be able to sleep last night even after giving him something to help him sleep. it was well after midnight before he finally went to sleep and that was only after giving him some pain medication as well.

it is amazing what having a day like yesterday does to affect the kind of day he is having today. not a good one. he is extremely tired and is unwilling to eat even the little that he normally eats. part of this is due to a fear now of throwing up again. part of the effects of his brain injury are that his ability to exercise good judgement has been greatly altered. what level his being able to make good judgements will return to, like many things at this point, is unknown.

please pray for asher's appetite to pick up as well as how much he eats to increase. right now they have to give him liquid supplements through his feeding tube several times a day in order to insure that he receives all the nutrition that he needs. also, pray that asher will get the kind of rest that he must have in order to be as rested as possible for each of his therapies throughout each day. if he is too tired, because he hasn't been able to get enough rest the night before, he will not get what is vitally important for him to get out of each of his therapy sessions. all of this, of course, plays a critical role as well in asher's psychological perspective of where he is right now. under normal circumstances eating well, exercise and getting enough rest can play a significant role in our psychological perspectives of things so you can imagine, when you have had the critical injuries that asher has the kinds of effects not getting enough of all of these things can have.

i know that asher is going to bounce back from the set back that he had yesterday, and prayer will continue to contribute greatly to how soon and how effectively he recovers. bless you all for praying.

i would also like to ask you to pray that construction will be able to get started really soon on our house. with a house built in 1920, that has plaster and lath walls, deterioration happens very rapidly with extreme temperature changes like the ones that have occurred in our house since the roof was opened up. with much of the roof only being covered by tarps water continues to come inside every time there is a heavy rain.

continuing in the beyond our control,

andy mendonsa

| By Andy Mendonsa | 10:10 AM

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Posted by: alice at August 2, 2005 01:27 PM

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