01/18/2012 Appeal for Prayer

A couple of weeks ago Ruby had another MRI of her brain. The neurologist called last week to give us the results of the MRI. Back when Ruby was in the hospital, there was question as to whether or not the left side of Ruby's brain was temporarily or permanently damaged. If the damage was only temporary - a result of cell inflammation, but not cell death - then the cells should have recovered and one would expect the neural pathways to eventually reconnect. This process is somewhat like what a baby goes through in their brain development. So this would mean that she would merely need to relearn things that she knew before by reconnecting the neural pathways in the same part of the brain that was used for the old function. Permanently damaged cells are dead and will never work again. In this case, other parts of the brain need to take over for the damaged parts in order for the patient to regain any function that was lost. Unfortunately, the left side of Ruby's brain has suffered permanent damage. It is smaller than it used to be. There is scarring that will never be gone. The left hemisphere of Ruby's brain will never be the same again.

The reason I am writing this post it to request that everyone who reads it send up a prayer for Ruby. While she has continued to improve slowly, it is now very clear that the right hemisphere is going to have to pick up a lot of the slack, if not all of the slack. This is especially daunting because her speech center, which is on the left side, seems to have been hit the hardest. I believe there is still hope that her neural pathways may be able to find ways around the scar tissue, but nobody knows for sure. Melissa and I are so desperate for her to talk again - the way she used to talk. As I'm writing this I'm thinking,"who cares?" God is not constrained by neural pathways and scar tissue. Please pray that He heals her brain whichever way He wants to. Make the scar tissue vanish. Make the right side handle speech the way the left side used to handle speech. I don't care how you do it, Lord. Please, please, please heal our little girl.