One Week at Home!

It's hard to believe that Ryan has been home for one glorious week already! Nine weeks ago we weren't sure if he would ever make it home again. The blessings and miracles that God sends us never cease to amaze us! 💜💜💜 When we got home last week, Ryan wrote this on the chalkboard in our dining room:

Ryan and I worked together today to put up a pole in Nicole's closet. The project seemed simple enough, but it was exhausting, especially for Ryan. He doesn't have the strength in his arms to hold his drill up for long, but we made things work. :) He told me today how hard it is for him to think of more than one thing at a time. Where he used to be able to make to-do lists in his head, he now can't. If he's going downstairs for something, he has to focus only on the stairs, not on if he forgot something that he was supposed to bring down with him, or on what he's planning on doing once he gets downstairs. He said that quite a few times he has found himself standing in the middle of a room feeling lost, not sure what he should be doing.

Yesterday Ryan pulled out his computer and opened up our copies of the x-ray, CT, and MRI exams that had been done at Portneuf. It was difficult for him to see clearly, but he managed to work his way through the familiar program to view the exams. We discovered that we are actually missing the CD with the MRI images from Utah, so we still aren't able to see the improved MRI like we'd hoped. Ryan gave me permission to share this image here, showing the main damage from hypoxia in his cerebellum (the bright white spots towards the bottom of the image).

Other deficits that Ryan is noticing include numb spots on his skin on his left shoulder blade, some of his toes, etc; and when he grabs his right arm with his left hand, he feels like he's grabbing another person's arm instead of his own. He frequently sees things in double, and when he's walking he can't look around or he becomes dizzy. He also says that he feels very clumsy, but I think he's doing remarkably well! He's been able to read more at a time, even with the small font our scriptures are printed in! And he helps out with preparing food for meals.

Becca drew a beautiful family picture of us on her white board the other day. I love it! All summer her family pictures have included Ryan in a hospital bed, but this one, as you can see, has all of us standing together again! :)