For everybody out there who has been following the saga of Josh’s recovery, it’s been an amazing ride. Only two months ago Josh was unable to talk, walk, feed himself, or even have the most basic body functions under control. Only a few weeks previous to that doctors had indicated that Josh might not ever awake from his coma.
Josh has progressed quickly in his recovery. He’s working hard every day to get back to his old self. He’s still got quite a ways to go, but the progress he has been making has been amazing.
Yesterday, he went to a hockey game under his own power. We were a a little worried at first because he seemed very withdrawn. It was like he was waiting for someone to notice he was “different”. After the first period he relaxed and began to enjoy the game. He even wanted to check out the karate studio booth. The students had put on a board breaking demonstration during the first intermission. The instructor said you could go to the booth and break a board if you wanted. Well Josh wanted to and he did! Talk about progress!
From here:
Here's Josh three months ago.
To here in three months!
Here's Josh now!
His memory, strength and coordination get a little better every day. The down side is he is so far from away from where he was September 12th that he gets emotionally overwrought. The deep sadness he feels cannot always be verbalized and then frustration sets in. Since his emotional age is very young, we often see a short burst of anger from him. It doesn’t last long but it is truly heartbreaking.
On a more positive note: Josh loves the web site www.lumosity.com You can sign up for a free week, no strings attached, and play the games Josh plays to build his brain. Josh challenged my sister to Josh had me play one of the memory match games. It sounded easy. Just touch the MATCH or NO MATCH buttons after you see a shape. Well Jamie was soooo super fabulous, I scored 960. Then Josh showed her his score and it was 5,000, He said she needed to go to rehab with a score like that. Pretty funny.
Through the generosity of so many we have raised almost $2000 towards the $75,000+ in hospital and medical bills Josh’s hospital and rehabilitation has cost our family. Thank goodness that the insurance is covering the other $300,000 in bills!
I just wanted to say thank you so much to everybody who has donated. Our family has been humbled by the outpouring of support we have received. We cannot express our gratitude strongly enough!
