The Rest of October, 2008

We continue to find things to keep us occupied and busy. It's wonderful to have a Sabbath at home. With the shorter hours of daylight, it's nice to have some daylight to see all the leaves that are begging to be raked up! The current rain and wind are doing their best to add to the layer of red, yellow and orange leaves on the ground already.

Three visits to a neurologist and tests for nerve conduction have shown no reason for Joanie's shoulder pain. Fortunately her pain continues to abate and she gets more use and movement out of her left shoulder, arm, and hand. She has stopped her medication for nerve pain as it seemed to have no positive effect on her. Over the past 2-3 weeks she has all but stopped her other pain medication. She asks for a tablet on rare occasions, often following a workout with her Occupational Therapist. Most of her OT sessions result in the therapist telling her that she's been able to move Joanie's arm farther than ever! Her Speech Therapist sent a report to Joanie's doctor where she noted all the improvements in cognitive reasoning. Joanie has the same program on a computer here at home and she tries to practice daily. It is paying off. I'm beginning to think that maybe I should be also using the same software.

As you can imagine her therapists enjoy working with her because she's so much fun. One of them has offered to bring Joanie home any day that Joanie's therapy finishes near quitting time. We took her up on that a couple of weeks ago to permit me to stay at work a little longer. Another of the therapists thinks they should go over to Starbucks and sit around and talk! Just last Thursday, one of the aides that works with the PT's told Joanie how delighted she was to see Joanie's progress. She said that she had been sent to see Joanie in ICU during her first day in the hospital. She'd tried to get Joanie to sit up and Joanie could only remain upright for one second.

About five or six weeks ago, Joanie read of an Art Expo down in Pasadena. She was hoping that 3-4 of the women in her monthly art group would be able to go down for the weekend. Joanie had it all figured out that they could stay at her mom's empty house in Glendale and take some classes. As it turned out, only one of the women could go, and she wasn't able to drive the entire way by herself. I'd been looking forward to a "responsibility free" weekend but I could see how much this meant to Joanie. Plus, we needed to see Joanie's mother, whom we'd not seen since a week before the stroke in mid May, so I agreed to take a day off from school and drive them down there. Joanie had a fantastic time. She felt it was even better than she'd expected. She took a class Friday morning and looked around the displays in the afternoon. We then drove out to Loma Linda to spend time with Louise, Joanie's 91 year old mother. After visiting with her, we drove over to La Sierra and spent the night with Brenda, Joanie's sister. Sabbath morning, we returned to Loma Linda to see Louise again. That afternoon, we returned to Glendale and spent time with some of the neighbors that Joanie grew up with. Sunday morning, Joanie took another class and we left for home, and a seven hour drive, in the early afternoon.

Tuesday, we get together with Joanie's three therapists to discuss her progress and talk about her future. We had a slight concern the other day regarding medical coverage of her therapies. We'd been told she was covered for 30 visits and we've had 24. The therapists' office had called to see if there was any way to extend that and was told no. For some reason, our office called them again, and this time was told that Joanie has 45 visits! When I have a minute, I'm going to call them myself and get it in writing. I'm hoping that 45 is the real number because Joanie continues to improve but still needs more. It makes a little difference of about an additional $100 per session if insurance stops covering the visits.

At the moment, Joanie is on the phone to a friend, telling her about a book she's reading called, A Stroke of Insight. It is the story of physician and brain scientist who suffered a stroke and lived to write about it. Joanie's finding it very interesting.


This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. 3So the sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick."

When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it."

John 11:2-4 NIV