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.

Fun Video

Melissa and I were looking through pictures and videos yesterday evening and found something too good not to post. This is a video of Ruby almost exactly a week before her seizure. This is where we're heading, God willing . . . and minus the parent-sanctioned dog terrorizing.  :)  We pray she gets back to her funny talking.

01/08/2012

It has been quite some time since I last found the time to write. Oddly enough, things have been seemingly even more hectic after being out of the hospital. Ruby is continuing to make progress since her discharge from the hospital, even without any formal therapy (we knew that there would be an unavoidable therapy gap before leaving the hospital). To make a long story short, there is no question that she loves being home.

The day we left the hospital, I began to fold up Ruby's blankets and prepare her crib for our departure. I was surprised to see Ruby get a little bit upset. I told her that we were going to go home and that she would get to sleep in her own bed again. To this she replied, undeterred, "I want that one!" as she pointed in the direction of her hospital bed. Nevertheless, we finally got moved into our new place a couple of days later. When it came time for bed, Ruby could not wait to lie in her old crib. The next morning, she was absolutely delighted to come into Mom and Dad's bed . . . with both Mom and Dad there! It is difficult to describe with words, but we could just see her beaming as she turned to Mom and kissed her, then turned to Dad and kissed me, then turned to Mom and kissed her, and she went on and on like that several times. She wore a big goofy smile on her face the entire time. It is no exaggeration to say that Ruby glowed in that first day with all of us together again in our new home.

Santa reads a book to the kids on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve

Christmas was nice. Ruby thinks that all wrapped gifts belong to her.  :)  She sat with Santa for the first time on Christmas Eve. He scared her a little bit when he would laugh, "ho, ho, ho!" So she coped with it by telling Santa to "shh, shh, shh!" Again, it's wonderful to be back together as a family.

She's been improving little by little, despite not having started any therapy yet. We are relieved to finally have her starting this week. Her walking has really improved, even since being out of the hospital. She's walking pretty normally now. You certainly wouldn't know that she couldn't walk on her own just two months ago. She still doesn't use her right hand for anything. Unfortunately, she will do just about anything to avoid having to use it. Melissa and I can get her to do some things with a significant amount of encouragement, but this is hopefully where the occupational therapy will help her most. When we met with Ruby's new therapist last week, she seemed very positive about Ruby's potential.

The doctors and therapists have always said that speech would take the longest to come back. While we do not have any guaranty that it will ever come back fully, we have seen some encouraging signs over the last 4 weeks. New words include "hi", "up", and "down". Melissa first heard Ruby say 'hi" when they were in the car together. While in the car last week, Melissa was surprised to hear Ruby saying "hi . . . hi . . . hi!" When Melissa turned around, Ruby was holding her stuffed lion and using its paw to wave to the passing cars. Even if her speech doesn't come back fully, she's also learned new signs from American Sign Language. She really seems like she's as bright as she ever was minus the speech problem, which means that she's not having any trouble comprehending and learning. Again, God willing, Ruby's speech neurons will continue to reconnect and/or her brain will just find another way.

This verse makes too much sense not to quote here. Our God is a God of great promises. I love Him for that.

"I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it." ~Psalm 81:10