The Asher Update

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July 5, 2005

Back Online, July 5, 9 PM

it is good to be able to send out another update on asher. the server here at Shepherd has been down since i came back on sunday. apparently they switched out servers and some things fell between the cracks. it all seems to be working fine now and i am very thankful.

since asher started talking last friday night he has been able to communicate more and more. he will answer most questions, and he will also ask questions as well as make statements. for instance, he made a tough statement, in the form of a question, for us to hear this morning. he said: "do you know how much it hurts and how hard it is?" he is becoming more and more aware of his situation and not only where he hurts, but also what is not working. although, he has not asked specific questions about specific parts of his body that aren't working, we can tell that he knows. right now asher is considered, and being treated as a quadrapelegic. even though he has some feeling and movement to varying degrees in different regions of his arms/hands and legs/feet he is not able to do anything for himself. this does not mean that he is not expected to ever regain any of their use, it just means that due to both his brain injuries as well as his spinal injuries that it will take a lot of time and therapy to rehabilitate any or all of these areas. most of all, though, it will take all of your continued prayers for his complete recovery, just as it has been all of your prayers that have carried him as far as he has come in such a short time. just one week after coming to shepherd asher looks and acts like a completely different person. it is just absolutely amazing. i can't believe that he is even the same person he was a week ago.

i know that many of you have asked me as well as others if asher is awake now that he is talking. i know that this is very confusing. it was to us and still is in many ways, so i can imagine how confusing this is to many of you. what we have learned since asher was in icu back at erhlanger in chattanooga is that coma's are measured by a scale called the rancho los amigos scale (this is the name of the hospital where it was first developed). they have redefined it recently and now it goes from 0 to 8 with 0 being the lowest. asher was a 2 when he came shepherd and i think that he may be a full 4 right now. if not a 4 then close to it. i am including a web site that you can go to see how the different levels of a coma are rated: www.waiting.com/rancholosamigos.html. hopefully this will help clear up some of the confusion.

something that i forgot to mention in my last update, where i shared with you about the skate benefit competition, was that there was a flyer that had been put out announcing that on this saturday, july 9, between 12 and 2 PM, at A Novel Idea Bookstore, 38 frazier avenue in chattanooga, there will be a benefit book signing with all of the proceeds going to help asher. the name of the book is "Missing On Lonely Mountain," and the author is Russell Bean, who is a city court judge in chattanooga. In a recent interview Judge Bean said that "Missing On Lonely Mountain" is about 3 boys who get lost on a mountain while skateboarding. It's a tale of adventure and intrigue." Judge Bean, who has 2 sons who were both skateboarders and who this story is loosely based, went on to say in this same article that "When the skateboarding park was built downtown, a lot of people complained about it." "Some people," he said, "don't think much of the sport. But i know that there are a lot of good kids who enjoy skateboarding. That's why I wanted to publish this book." Amen Judge Bean.

A signed copy of this book can be purchased this saturday, July 9, between 12 and 2 PM, or it can be ordered online from the bookstore web site: www.itsanovelidea.com.

please keep praying for asher to not be afraid. he has said several times to us over the past few days that he is afraid that we are going to go off and leave him. i can't imagine what it is like for him not to be able to move more than about 10% of his body right now. he needs a lot of grace in his life to be able to cope with the realization of not only what has happened to him, but what his condition is for the present. the other night, while i was alone with him for a while, he asked me to explain what happened to him. up until then (since friday night) he has just said that he didn't want to talk about. this time he was the one that brought it up. so, i explained where he was and how he fell and then what happened to him after that up until the came to sheperd last week. he seemed to handle it all pretty well. he doesn't remember anything up, until now, and he probably won't ever remember any of it. even now, he doesn't remember things from day to day.

gloria, hadrienne and i are doing pretty well adjusting to our new schedule and present living quarters. there is, though, a daily awareness of temporariness. it has had the effect, at least with me, of making me very aware of the temprariness of life itself. we live life like it will last forever, but in reality what we have come to live as living has nothing to do with living at all. i believe, now, more than ever that true living, in God's eyes, is doing for others, and it is only through doing for others that we are able to begin to realize how temporary this life is and how permanent eternity becomes. do unto others as you would have them do unto you, love God with all of your heart mind and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself.

asher loves to listen to all kinds of music on the radio, or cd's, throughout the day, but at night, when it is time for him to go to bed and after we have prayers with him, the song that seems to soothe him the most, that he wants us to sing to him, is "jesus loves me." sometimes he wants us to follow that with "amazing grace." what an absolutely incredible way to end our day with him. we are just so thankful.

giving thanks with all of you for all that God continues to do every second of every day, both here in asher's room into all of our lives as well as coming out of asher's room into all of our lives.

continuing to ride on the wave of God's hope,

andy mendonsa

| By Andy Mendonsa | 12:03 PM

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