We Are Still Here

It's been sometime since the last post, so here's an update.  Joy is slowly progressing and we see countless little indications of that every week that are too numerous to list.  She is responding appropriately more often to verbal queues and doing little things like removing her socks when her feet get too warm.  Purposeful things.  Tonight she opened the door for Heidi after she scratched on it to come in.  In the picture below you will see that she has crossed her right leg over her left and is resting her right hand on a box at the kitchen table.  Six months ago, she could not move either her right leg or right arm. 

Joy with attitude

Tomorrow we go for a series of tests that we hope will assure the doctors that Joy will be ready for her angioplasty procedure that is now tentatively scheduled for December 22nd.  If vacancies in Dr. Sanchez's schedule occur before then, he will move the date up.  December 22nd will mark a year and a day since Joy's aneurysm burst, a sad and frightening day that I will never forget and one which changed our lives forever.  On December 23rd of last year, she had her craniotomy, which she tolerated well.  In fact, Joy was lucid and fully herself for nearly 9 days after her craniotomy, but then the vasospasms from the blood from the other aneurysm that had burst and leaked into the deepest part of her brain caused her stroke on January 3rd.  Later in January, the doctors at Loma Linda seemed to have given up on Joy and were planning to release her to a rest home where she most certainly would have died.  At that point a miraculous rescue occurred that was engineered by Dr. Chuck Smith and Dr. Rene Sanchez-Mejia and, after Joy was moved to Scripps Green Hospital, her recovery began in earnest. 

Yesterday Susan, who had just returned from a business trip to Las Vegas, came over to plan Thanksgiving with Sue and Joy.  Sue's family, which includes her sister Mary Anne and her brother John, will join us for Thanksgiving.  Given that all these ladies are excellent cooks, it should be a day of great food and happy times.  Here's a picture of Susan, Sue and Joy planning the menu:  

Here's another picture of Joy outside after a walk :  

After some problems and delays, we've downloaded selected programs from the apps store on Joy's iPad and she seems to be fascinated with the device.  We hope it will become a useful tool in her journey to recover her ability to speak. 

Finally, a photo of a black phoebe who has taken a liking to our new pool and the dead insects he finds on the surface in the morning.  Although my camera is not the greatest and I don't shoot from a tripod, I'm starting to get some pretty good photos of the wildlife around here.  I will post some on occasion. 

Happy Thanksgiving to you all.  I am profoundly thankful to the Creator to still have my beautiful wife here at home with me.  In the past two years, three men who live within half a mile of me suffered the loss of their wives.   All three of the women who died were younger than Joy.  I am also thankful to my family and friends who have supported us in our difficult time and helped in whatever way they could.  


Our Love to you all,  

Doug

A Good Visit to the Doctor

Friends and Family of Joy:  

We saw Dr. Sanchez again today.  Everything is looking good.  Her incision is healing nicely and next Tuesday they will remove the sutures.  Joy had another CT scan today to document the results of the downward adjustment to her shunt flow and it also looked good.  Her ventricles had increased in size a little, but that was what Dr. Sanchez was hoping to see.   Her infection appears to be under control and we will soon take her off the anti-biotics.

Dr. Sanchez's assistant Brenda came into the room today and asked Joy, "How are you feeling?'' Joy replied, "Okay," and nodded her head.  All of us have noticed that she is talking more and responding more appropriately to verbal queries since her surgery and shunt adjustment 8 days ago.

Her angioplasty procedure will be scheduled for sometime in the next two to four weeks. After that, there will be the procedure to fill the voids in her skull plate.  Dr. Sanchez believes the latter should be scheduled for sometime early next year.  It depends on her health, her rate of recovery and how she responds to the angioplasty procedure.

We are making slow, but steady progress. 

This weekend I will take a brief vacation and travel to San Antonio, Texas to watch my undefeated alma mater, Centre College (7-0), play the undefeated Trinity University Tigers (8-0).  I played four years of football for Centre and started every game as a wide receiver.  Last year I went back to the campus for the first time and attended my 40th reunion.  While there I watched the Homecoming football game, which re-infected my blood with football fever.  From an historical standpoint, this is the most important football game the team has played in over 50 years. (Not as important, however, as a game the team played in 1921 when they upset Harvard for the National Championship. You could look it up.)   I want to be able to brag to my teammates,  several of whom I still correspond with, that I was there when the Colonels knocked off their rival on their way to an undefeated season.  

My Aunt Janice and her husband Courtney are putting me up in San Antonio and I look forward to seeing them.  One of the first things that endeared me to  Joy when I met her in 1991 was her laugh, which was almost identical to my Aunt Janice's laugh.

I am loathe to leave Joy, but I know she is in good hands with her sister Susan and our able nurses Sue, Angela, Natalie, and Misty.

Love to all of you and yours,


Doug