Pray for Meredith

Over the past several months we received many, many words of comfort, hope, encouragement from you precious people. Those words and the prayers associated with them helped carry us through deep valleys into a place of light and joy.

 Meredith came home from the hospital at the end of July in time to have 2 weeks of summer at home. Meredith has gone to school for a couple of hours each day for 2 weeks. She has begun therapy sessions at a very good therapy center in Lexington. It seems as though Meredith has improved daily since she left the icu in early june. The therapists and doctors have all commented on her rapid improvement.

I was able to spend a couple of days recently with Meredith and family this week, then Josh’s parents came in for 3 days. Glenda will leave Sunday to stay indefinitely to help with  Meredith’s schedule and to be entertained by Laura Campbell.

We are blessed beyond words.

Tonight I got to wash my children’s school uniforms in preparation of the first day of school tomorrow.   Half the load was a size 5 and the other half was size 8. 

I labeled two sets of school supplies.  Since the kindergartner doesn’t start school until Wednesday, I only packed one backpack — for the 3rd grader.  A pink KungFu Panda backpack with a hole where one Corgi tried to chew threw to a snack, a snack that sat in the unused backpack through the last week of April, the month of May and into early June, when I could finally stand to unpack it, knowing I would find Meredith’s pink glasses in there and knowing she could now wear them.  She needed them, in fact. 

And now she needs clean clothes for school, just like her little sister.  She needs 3rd grade school supplies.  Tomorrow she will walk into school on the first day of school, but before that she will have to be woken up early.  She will likely be very unhappy about that and will have to take her medicine before putting on the school uniform and the backpack.    What joy to be able to wash clothes for both my kids; to be packing school supplies for them both, to get them both up and ready in the morning.  I am blessed beyond measure and have never felt more completely surrounded by His goodness and His grace. 

From one of my favorite Psalms, “Yet I am confident that I will see the LORD’s goodness while I am here in the land of the living. ” Ps. 27:13.  And the following verse that I repeated constantly to myself during the ICU days, “Wait patiently for the LORD.  Be brave and courageous.  Yes, wait patiently for the LORD.”

Yesterday, after meeting with some educators, we decided to apply for OT and speech therapies to be offered through the Fayette public school district.  These will be, provided she qualifies, in addition to the ones she will soon start getting at Cardinal Hill.  Tuesday will be the girls’ first day of school.  LC is thrilled to be started full day kindergarten.  I plan on taking Meredith to school for about an hour a day during the first week to see how she does in the classroom.  We’ll see how her attention holds up and take it from there.   It will take some juggling to get her to therapies and take care of her outside of school, but she could very well take off in school and make the adjustment faster than we expect.

Today we saw the neurologist/movement disorder specialist in Cincinnati.   He is following her for the chorea disorder plus making decisions regarding her seizure medications.   He was very pleased with her progress and says the MRI shows great improvements in all areas that were previously affected back in late April and May.  The improvements are greater than he would have expected in this short time from the previous MRI.  The thalamus, basal ganglia and cerebellum are all free of inflammation and there are no permanent changes as they once feared.  The doctor is also starting to decrease one seizure medication and once that is off, will start tapering the next.  By the spring she could be free of seizure meds — free of all meds, in fact!

At this point I am just relishing being home with the family.  I’m amazed beyond words at God’s constant provisions and care for us and His healing of Meredith.  It’s far beyond words how thankful I am.   “My gracious Master and my God, assist me to proclaim, to spread through all the earth abroad the honors of Thy name.” –O for a thousand tongues to sing.

This has been one of the happiest weeks I’ve ever had.  There have been no major events.  Just being home together.  Taking walks. Eating together. Reading books to both girls together and putting them to bed each night.   Going to church as a family today for the first time in 3 months.  Amazing blessings that I am so thankful for.  This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!!!

Tomorrow evening we take Meredith to Cinci for an MRI (they didn’t do the one that was scheduled for last Monday), but we should be home later the same night.  She will have to be sedated but it should wear off quickly.  This Wednesday Josh will take Mere to her first OT and PT at Cardinal Hill, and I will go back to work.  And next week we will have a meeting with the principals of Trinity and of the public school in our district and the educational liason working with us from the Cinci hospital.