My days are starting to bleed together. One of my co-workers asked me how my weekend was. My response: “I don’t remember it.” And I really couldn’t. Granted it was an early Monday morning, but it was indicative of how fleeting is my time. Even as I write this, the clock stares at me, shocking me with its pronouncement of another day gone by. On the one hand, I want time to slow down so I can catch my breath, and on the other I want it to speed up, hastening Claire’s recovery.
If I remember anything from this weekend, it is reflecting on the fact that it’s been three months since the accident. My shoulders get heavy just mentioning it. The difficulty level has increased. I reflect on the first few days when it happened, hoping that as we brought Claire out of hypothermia, we’d take great strides to recovery. We were cautioned that the recovery would take a long time, but we still didn’t grasp the gravity of the situation: little did we know that weeks, months and years of shuffling forward were ahead of us. The slow pace is what is difficult, each day another day without seeing Claire smile, hearing her voice or watching her play. We’ve survived for three months without those things, but we can’t imagine living without them for another day. But we do it anyway, because we hold on to the hope that day will come soon.
And while they’re not the strides we hoped for, we continue to take baby steps toward that day. Following Claire’s horse therapy on Friday, we spent the weekend running her through the gamut again: massages and stretching in the morning, body weight therapy in the stander, visual therapy with Wee See (thank you Rollin), oral therapy exercises, exercise ball therapy, more stretching, more exercising, more massaging and then some tummy time. On some days we see something new. Tiffany had the idea of buying some Baby Orajel as part of oral therapy. Her idea was that when you feel numbness in your mouth, your tongue tends to explore that side of your mouth. Claire’s tongue exercises have been limited. So we tried the Orajel. It worked right away. We watched Claire move her tongue to the right side of her mouth, feeling where we had placed the drop. We all cheered watching her little tongue move. Her curiosity turned to annoyance when the feeling didn’t go away. She didn’t like it. It was a victory nonetheless.
These victories, no matter how small, still help us battle the hope defeating thoughts like wondering if Claire will ever get better or how long will Heidi and Autumn have to wait to play with their sister again. We don’t dwell on these thoughts, but they stalk us. We still return to your comments for support. Knowing that such a wonderful group of people are praying and hoping for us, helps us keep our spirits up. Thank you as always. Goodnight.
Our Claire Journal 