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August 5, 2005
Plateaus, August 5, 11 PM
today asher was finally back up to where he was before he began to have some difficulties on monday. it took days of sleeping and resting most of the week for his body to recover. it has been good to see him acting like his (new) old self. hope that makes sense.
in the early days of his injuries, when there were so many unknowns, everyday seemed to spark new hope. those days were filled with so many firsts, and as i said as we were going through them it was like watching a new born developing into a toddler, but at a very excellerated rate. after all of those "firsts" take place, like saying the turning over, crawling, standing up and saying the first words, a times comes after that where there is a leveling off, of sorts. asher has definitely entered into that time. it doesn't mean that he is not gaining ground as far as his therapies are concerned, it just means that the degrees of change are far more subtle and not as dramatic to report.
since asher has both brain injuries as well as spinal injuries it greatly complicates the recovery process in terms of the therapies that he is now undergoing. even though we are around him day in and day out, and are able to witness first hand how difficult it is for him to have to struggle in both of these areas at once, it is also very difficult to explain these struggles in ways that others will understand them when we are still having a hard time trying to understand them ourselves. there is some really great information on the Shepherd web site (shepherd.org) about both spinal and brain injuries if any of you would be inclined, or have the time to look. medically, it gives you a much better idea of some of the things that asher is going through, than i am able to explain.
one of the things that i can tell that is improving is asher's short term memory. the other morning when the nurse woke him up she immediately asked him what day it was, the date, the year, and where he was. without hesitating he answered all these question correctly. they ask him questions like this every day in order to determine his overall awareness as well as how well he is retaining new information from day to day. when his nurse came in tonight the first thing she asked asher was her name. he also knew that immediately. the surprise in her voice did not escape my notice.
asher is also now using an electric wheel chair. it has a joy stick on the left side since his left arm has some voluntary movement and he is able to move his wrists. at some point they will begin to work with him to be able to extend his left arm so that he can learn to control the wheel chair for himself. right now he is not ready for that, though. he can raise and lower his chair, though. they have also installed a large button by his head that he can press his head against that will tilt him back and up again. he has to do this every 30 minutes in order to shift his weight. if he doesn't do this it can cause sores. sores that he cannot afford to get.
he had the beginnings of a sore at the bottom of his back when he came to shepherd and he is only now being allowed to lie flat on his back, but for only 3 hours a day. the rest of the time he has to lie on his sides (he gets turned every 4 hours). since one of shepherd's key areas of specialization is skin care, we are very fortunate to be getting some of the best training in the world for asher in this area. learning about what doing a poor job with skin care can mean for someone who has the disabilities that asher has right now is truly frightening. frightening enough to make certain that he will be cared for properly. the catch 22 factor is, though, that the realization of all of the work that is involved in insuring that he has this kind of care is almost just as overwelming.
grace has carried us this far, a distance that none of us could have made on our own, and we are depending everyday on that same grace to give us the strength to make it another step, another yard and a little closer to the finish.
our family continues to be deeply in your debt for your gracious offerings of prayer on our behalf. i can honestly never express to you how much we are sustained each moment of each day by them and how much that means to us. in a very real sense it means life itself, eternally.
adjusting to the plateaus, thankful they are there,
andy mendonsa
P.S.
some of you have contacted me and wanted to know when another date had been set to try and move our furniture and other belongs out of our house and into storage until our house can be put back together. right now, the plan is to have a work day next saturday, august 13. larry reed, a very old and dear friend has offered to organize and be in charge of getting this done for us. Lord bless him. if you need contact information for him please just email me at: andy@widows.org. as i have more information i will also include it in future updates.
| By Andy Mendonsa | 11:19 PM
